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THE . 

LIFE AND TIMES OF JOSEPH 

IN THE LIGHT OF EGYPTIAN LORE 



HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 



a3s°^at|^s of 33tble BnoiDletrgt 

XVII 
THE 

LIFE AND TIMES OF JOSEPH 

IN THE LIGHT OF EGYPTIAN LORE 



BY THE 

REV. h/g/TOMKINS 

LATE VICAR OF BRANSCOMBE 
AUTHOR OF 'studies ON THE TIMES OF ABRAHAM,' ETC. 



SECOND EDITION 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

CHICAGO 
148 & 150 Madison Street 

The Religious Tract Society Londoft 



NEW YORK 
112 Fifth Avenue 



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By . 

Amerioar .■•Ji^iiy 

Jar ^2Q 



PREFACE 



In this little book the reader will find himself out of 
the high-road of Biblical exposition, and (in conformity 
with the general title of this Series of Handbooks) in 
By-paths of Bible Knowledge. 

With questions of textual criticism I have not been 
concerned. The date and origin and authorship of 
those documents which may have been used in the 
writing, or subsequent redaction, of the Book of Genesis, 
are not the matters which lay in my way. But, quite 
apart from all such studies, it is surely a very interest- 
ing and instructive thing to lay the narrative as it stands 
side by side with the daily increasing information which 
comes to the student of Egyptian lore^ and of other 
branches of Biblical archaeology. 

This I had done in concise form with regard to the 
Life of Joseph in a paper which may be found in the 
Transactions of the Victoria Institute for 1880^; and I 
have since studied, as far as I am aware, all that has 
been written by Egyptologists bearing on the subject. 

The references in the following pages, and a few 

1 Vol. XV, pp. 83 et seqq. 



6 PREFACE. 

notes by way of Appendix, will guide the reader to 
the more important sources of information. The very 
able work of Dr. de Cara, of Rome, on the Hyksos^, 
has added the latest digest of information with regard 
to this obscure but most attractive period of history ; 
and I would also draw special attention to the fine 
Memoir on Bubastis by M. Naville, as well as his 
volume on Goshen, both of them published by the 
Egypt Exploration Committee. 

The narrative of the life of Joseph in the Book of 
Genesis has been treated in the most thoughtful, 
learned, and devout manner by the venerable Franz 
Delitzsch in his New Commentary on Genesis^ of which 
an English translation (with 'numerous improvements 
and additions ' by the author) is available for those who 
do not read German^. 

For an able and candid exposition of the conserva- 
tive views of the Biblical text, I would refer to The 
Fotmdations of the Bible^ by my friend Canon R. H. 
Girdlestone^ and especially, as bearing on my own 
subject, to p. 46, and the close of the work, and the 
valuable chapter on Hebrew Spelling. And for a more 
popular view of the same general subject it is very 
well to read the same author s small and handy tract, 
The Age and Trustworthiness of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, 

For my own part I think it right to reiterate the 
belief that what have been called 'precritical' studies 

^ Gli Hyksds, ^c, del P. Cesare A. de Cara, Roma, 1889. 

^ Clark, Edinburgh, 1889. ^ Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1890. 



PREFACE. 7 

in the way of collation of the Scripture narrative as 
it stands, with all that becomes known from monu- 
mental sources (as they are now generally called), 
are of a very high rank of importance and value ; and 
provide us, indeed, with most valuable material (as, 
for instance, with palaeographic data, and other kindred 
details) bearing on the more mature decisions of what 
is exclusively called ' criticism.' 

A very striking instance of an attempt to disprove 
the early date of the Egyptian narratives of the Book 
of Genesis is given in an Appendix at the end of this 
volume, and previously in a letter by myself in the 
Academy for Jan. 31, 1891, to which no reply has been 
sent. In this case the structure of such names as 
Potiphar and Potiphera is alleged to prove a late date, 
no earlier than the ninth century B.C. But the allega- 
tion itself is an unaccountable error. 

So much it has seemed right to say. For some one 
might easily object to anything written with regard to 
Joseph which does not first disprove the floating ob- 
jections to the narrative of Holy Scripture. 

With regard to the spelling of proper names, I have 
tried to indicate the difference between the mere 
aspirate and the guttural sound indicated by Kh^ as in 
Haran and Kharran, for instance ; and between the 
Hebrew letters Kaph and Kheth^ as in Shekem instead 
of Shechem. But I could not venture on Khebron for 
Hebron, and the like, for reasons which may easily be 
supplied. 



CONTENTS. 



-♦-♦- 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 
Padan-Aram Ti 

CHAPTER n. 
Shekem 19 

CHAPTER in. 
Hebron and Dothan 28 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Egypt of Joseph 40 

CHAPTER V. 
Joseph in Office 46 

CHAPTER VI. 
Joseph's Administration 53 

CHAPTER VII. 
Jacob and his Sons 60 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Jacob's Migration 70 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Dying Israel 82 



lO CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER X. 
' Jacob-el and Joseph-el ' 93 

CHAPTER XL 
Jacob's Prophecy and Death 105 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Return, and Affairs in Egypt 128 

CHAPTER XIIL 
Egypt till the Exodus 136 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The ' New Pharaoh ' and his Successor .... 149 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Character of Joseph . . , , , . -174 



CHAPTER L 

PADAN-ARAM. 

WHEN Abram, at the call of God, had journeyed 
from Ur of the Chaldees west on his way to the 
place which Jehovah should show him, he halted on the 
east of the great river until the death of Terakh, his 
father. The region was called Padan-Aram, and its 
capital was Kharran, which took its name in the old 
pre-Semitic language from its being a great halting- 
place on the high-road of war and commerce between the 
Euphrates and the Nile. The name itself means 'road.' 
When Abram had departed to the Land of Promise, 
Nakhor, his brother, with his wife Milkah and their house, 
had remained, and Kharran is called * the city of 
Nahor' in the narrative of Eliezer's mission. There 
God gave Rachel to Jacob, as He had given Rebekah 
to his father, and there Jacob served the seven years 
which were in his eyes ' but a few days, for the love he 
had to her.' There the unscrupulous craft of Laban 
entrapped him into the false marriage with Leah ; but 
never did Jacob forget that Rachel was his true affianced 



12 PADAN-ARAM. 

bride ; and his great and faithful love for her lay at the 
root of all the story of his life. 

Thus we read the otherwise difficult riddle : ' these 
are the generations of Jacob : Joseph, seventeen years 
old,' &c. Padan-Aram was an old home of the fathers 
of Bible history, and their names still bloom from the 
soil in the local names Seruj, Kheber-Keui, and the like. 
Their way of life was not that of mere roving shepherds 
and herdsmen. Rather its fashion may be found in the 
Book of Job, who was one of the princes 'sitting in the 
gate ' of the city ; whose sons dwelt within ' the four 
corners of the house,' while they or their shepherds drove 
afield their wealth of herds with ' the dogs of their flock,' 
their sons and daughters following this pastoral life, but 
not forsaking the town, as the Arabs do in these days. 

Kharran was a great outpost of the lordship and 
civilization of Chaldsea, and indeed remained a strong- 
hold of planetary worship for centuries of Christian 
history, while the neighbouring city Edessa (Urfah) had 
its church and bishops. 

It was in no remote corner of the wilderness that 
Jacob wooed his well-beloved Rachel, but by the great 
stream of the world's traffic ; where the armies and 
caravans have beaten their dusty course through all the 
ages. Cuneiform inscriptions, as well as Fathers of 
the Church, have told us much of Kharran, and it is 
likely that antiquarian explorers may yet find in its great 
mound relics of no slight interest. Elsewhere I have 
described the place at some length^. Here I will only 
add that it was the very place for that paradoxical 

^ Studies on the Times of Abraham, 



PADAN-ARAM. I3 

mixture of patriarchal faith, with magical divination and 
half-idolatrous regard for terdpJiim^ which so puzzled the 
souls of Laban and of Rachel, and which led to the very 
edge of a frightful tragedy in the camp of the fugitive 
Jacob. The coherence of the Biblical narrative with 
external testimony is to be carefully marked in all that 
relates to Kharran and Padan-Aram ; to the connexion 
of the 'strangers and pilgrims' of Canaan with that 
resting-place of generations around the grave of Terakh, 
their father, which even Abraham still knew as ' my 
country,' although he charged his trusty Eliezer with 
most ample reason, * Beware that thou bring not my 
son thither again.' 

In truth we might well pursue this line of inquiry 
further. There was no choice except between the 
' daughters of Kheth ' and other maidens of Canaan on 
the one hand, and the ' kindred ' from Padan-Aram on 
the other. But many a ' root of bitterness ' grew in the 
fields of Kharran, and as we go on the path of our story 
we shall often taste the bitter in the wayside cup, and 
remember whence it came. 

So much the more do we bless the ' sweetness and 
light ' of Abraham's faith and walk with God, and rejoice 
to see Jacob struggling out of the tangled web^ albeit 
sore bested in the ' few and evil ' days of the years of his 
pilgrimage. 

Thus, for instance, how pitifully was Jacob withholden 
from his heart's desire ! The son of a wealthy father, 
the inheritor of the birthright, with his staff alone (the 
symbol of his dignity) he passed over Jordan. Seven 
years of drudgery, in heat by day, and frost of wakeful 
nights, he had to fulfil in payment of the dower of 



14 PADAN-ARAM. 

Rachel ; and only to fall into the snare of a double 
wedlock. 

Then came the seven years' further bondage to the 
crafty and oppressive Laban, years of sorrow and rebuke 
to the childless Rachel, while she saw the children of 
the other tents sporting around her, or carried in the arms 
of their mothers. Thus it seems that Leah had borne 
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, and afterwards Issachar 
and Zebulun, and Dinah her daughter. And Bilhah had 
become the mother of Dan and Naphtali, and Zilpah of 
Gad and Asher^. But at last, when twice seven years of 
Jacob's sore service were drawing to an end, * God 
remembered Rachel,' and 'she bare a son,' and said, 
' God /la^k taken azvay my reproach,' and she called his 
name Joseph, and said, ' The Lord shall add to me another 
son.' 

Well might the birth of Joseph be a crown of joy to 
Jacob and Rachel, for their desire was granted. The 
real destined wife had borne the heir of their hope. And 
now Jacob would go to his father's house in Canaan a 
happy man. 'When Rachel had borne Joseph .... 
Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, that I may go 
unto mine own place, and to my country.' 

For his heart was yearning to meet his father and 
mother again at * Kiriath-Arba, which is Hebron,' where 
Abraham and Isaac sojourned ; and Rachel, now that 
the Lord had taken away her reproach, would * bring 
her babe, and make her boast ' in the south land, where 
Isaac had been born in like manner after long years 
of * hope deferred.' 

It was Rachel who had been brought to Jacob (as 

^ Lange, Gen. xxix. 



PADAN-ARAM. 15 

• 

his mother to Eh'ezer) at the well. She it was for 
whose sake the seven years had seemed so short. In 
all piety and righteousness, her first-born was the 
destined heir ; and all along Jacob behaved himself 
as the constant and loving husband of Rachel, and the 
faithful father of her children. Let justice be done 
in this matter, for Jacob has faults enough to answer 
for. I contend that doting weakness in his dealings 
with Joseph was not among the number of those 
frailties. And let us remember that the whole story 
of Joseph unfolds itself like a flower from this stem of 
his father's loving preference, which I believe to be a 
strong point, and not a foible^ in the character of Jacob. 
But the crafty Laban prevailed once more to hold in 
his toils the man for whose sake he had ' divined ' that 
Jehovah had blessed him, just as the house of Joseph's 
master was afterwards made to prosper for his sake. 

So the first six years of the life of little Joseph were 
passed in Padan-Aram during the strife of wits between 
his father and his grandfather ; certainly a trying time 
for all the house, and far less favourable to all that was 
good, faithful, and noble, than those six years would 
have been if spent in the Vale of Hebron and the broad 
pastures of Beer-sheba. 

But Jacob was a thriving man, and Laban's sons 
were envious, and stirred up jealousy in their father. 
And the God of his fathers bade Jacob begone, for He 
would be with him. So Jacob ' sent and called Rachel 
and Leah to the field unto his flock,' and set the state 
of things before them, and they all agreed to flee away ; 
and so fled while Laban was gone to shear his sheep. 

Then Joseph saw the great river Euphrates, and was 



1 6 PAD AN- ARAM. 

ferried over, perhaps at Karkemish ; and so by Aleppo, 
and Hamah, and Damascus, they sped as they could 
on their way to the highlands of Gilead, in the old 
track trodden by their fathers ; and here, after seven 
days' journey, Laban overtook them, having set out on 
the third day after Jacob's flight, which, therefore, had 
been on the tenth day before. And now, in the stormy 
scene of mutual reproaches, Joseph, the six years' child, 
may have witnessed in his mother's tent the danger 
to her life as she sat above the hidden terdphim. Little, 
perhaps^ did he understand these unhappy doings on 
the heights of Gilead. How gladly must he have ^^^n 
the cairn heaped up, and the upright stone set firmly 
to bear witness of the covenant at Mizpah ! 

' And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God 
met him : and when Jacob saw them, he said. This 
is God's host (or camp, makhaneh)^ and he called the 
name of that place Makhanaim ' (two camps) ; for there 
the camp of Jacob was by the camp of the angels. 
From this place, bright with the presence of God's 
messengers, Jacob sends his own to Esau, his brother, 
unto the land of Se'ir; and they return with the alarming 
report that Esau was coming with four hundred men. 
Then, with the ingenuity of fear, Jacob divides his 
whole caravan into two separate companies (the word 
is makhaneh), and prays a thankful, humble, earnest 
prayer to the God of his fathers to deliver him In 
the morning he orders his gifts to propitiate Esau 
in the degrees of dignity ; goats, sheep, camels, kine, 
asses ; and puts a space between the droves, and gives 
a ceremonial message to the leaders, and sends the 
presents on across the Yabbok (the Zerka of these days). 



PADAN-ARAM. 17 

while he stayed in the camp. But in the night he 
arose, and made to pass across the ford all that was 
dear to him ; and doubtless Rachel with her child last. 
And then he was left alone, and One greater than the 
angels met him, and wrestled with him, and blessed 
him in the rising of the dawn. And the place Penu-el 
(' the face of God '), and perhaps the ford and stream 
Yabbok (as if the wresiler\ took their names from that 
great night. 

In the life of Jacob, and therefore of Joseph, after 
the hot strife of craft and jealousy, how freely do we 
breathe again in these sublime meetings of heaven and 
earth ! If Joseph in his after-life saw fit, with kind 
ends in view, to practise ingenious devices after the 
old style of keen invention, it was from those glorious 
traditions of his childhood that he learned to witness 
the good confession : ' so now it was not you that 
brought me hither, but God.' 

Let us divine the feelings of that day, when the long 
caravan, group after group, passed on to micet the 
injured and terrible Esau with his four hundred men 
in arms. First Jacob himself, to bear the earliest brunt, 
then the handmaids and their boys, then Leah and her 
children, ' and after came Joseph near and Rachel, and 
they bowed themselves.' Thus 'Joseph and Rachel' 
were duly put in the place of greatest safety and 
dignity. 

All was peace. ' So Esau returned that day on his 
way to Se'ir ; and Jacob journeyed to Sukkoth, and 
built him an house [beth)^ and made booths {sukkoth) 
for his cattle, therefore the name of the place is called 
Sukkoth.' 

B 



1 8 PADAN-ARAM. 

Dr. Merrill has identified this place with Tell 
Dar'ala \ just north of the Yabbok, on the strength of 
a passage in the Talmud which gives the name Der'alah 
as that of the ancient Sukkoth. Major Conder supports 
this identification. 

^ East of Jordan, p. 385. 



CHAPTER II. 

SHEKEM. 

^^TILL on the east of Jordan, as it seems, where he 
^^^^ had built the house and booths of Sukkoth, Jacob 
must have lingered a long time before crossing the river. 
But at length he brought all his train through the 
turbid stream, probably at the Damieh ford ; and 
leading them up the green and watered valley of 
Far'aa, halted at ' Shalem, a city of Shekem.' * The 
plain of Mukhna,' says Dr. Porter, 'sends out a broad 
green arm among the hills on the east, opposite the 
vale of Nabulus. The arm is called Salim, and takes 
its name from a little village on the rocky acclivity 
to the north, doubtless occupying the site, as it retains 
the name, of " Shalem, a city of Shekem,'' near which 
Jacob pitched his tent on his return from Padan-Aram ^' 
Now, since ' the arm ' of the Mukhna plain bears the 
name of Salim, and not merely the modern village, 
this may the better help us to understand how the 'piece 
of the field where he had spread his tent' should include 

^ Syria and Palestine^ p. 333. 

B a 



20 SHEKEM. 

Jacob's Well and the tomb of Joseph, both of them 
about two miles and a half westward of Salim as it 
now stands, and about a mile and a quarter from 
Nablus. Jacob's encampment would lie between Shalem 
and Shekem in the green plain. 

When Rachel and her little son came up the valley, 
its masters were of the people called 'the Khivvite/ It 
is generally taken as a merely descriptive name, meaning 
* villagers/ However that may be, we find them in 
possession of the very fairest spot in all the land of 
Canaan, under their chieftain Khamor^, and Shechem 
his son. 

Like Abraham, Jacob consecrated his resting-place in 
the land of Canaan by building an altar, which he called 
by the motto : El-elohe-Israel [El^ the God of Isra-el), ex- 
pressing the affiance to the mighty God who had upheld 
and rescued and blessed him, and given him his title, 
Isra-el. We must not think of the eight or ten years 
spent at Shalem as a time of pastoral seclusion in a green 
wilderness. The tribe were still on the high-road of the 
travel and traffic of those days, as at Kharran, and close 
to the settled towns of the Canaanites. 

As Joseph grew up, a lad 'fair of form and fair of 
countenance,' with the beauty of his mother and his 
grandmother, like David long afterwards, he must have 
seen the sights of town and country, and the foreign 
caravans that drew their long laden trains down to the 
great and renowned land of the Pharaohs. He must 
have heard the gossip of the women, the talk and long 
entertaining stories of the camp-fire, and the life-lore of 

^ See Appendix A. 



SHEKEM. ai 

Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and of their sires on the 
other side of the great river. And one word lets out 
much of their manner of life, which is quite supported by 
the old-world records of Chaldaea, the very numerous 
' contract- tablets ' of our museums, and the like ; where 
the men of Semitic and even Hebrew names are 
constantly found engaging in sales and barter, whether 
of commodities, or properties, or slaves. For we are 
told that the sagacious lords of Shekem said to their 
citizens about the new-comers : ' Let them dwell in the 
land and trade therein/ It was not merely and al- 
together the nomadic and pastoral life that we have 
pictured so familiarly to ourselves. Jacob provided his 
portion of land with that which made it as much as 
possible a place of separate and independent life for his 
own people, — the memorable well, ' deeper far,' says 
Canon Tristram, * than the w^ells sunk by his grandfather 
Abraham under similar circumstances at Beersheba, and 
which also remain to this day. We know not the 
original depth of this well, but it measured some few 
years ago 105 feet ; and probably this falls far short of 
its original depth, since rubbish has been continually and 
wantonly thrown in, till it is now choked at a depth of 
75 feetV 

Mr. Mill states that it is a rain-water cistern, and not 
a well of living water. This agrees with the contrast in 
our Saviour's words to the woman of Sychar : • He would 
have given thee living water.' Major Conder says that 
the well is cut through alluvial soil and soft rock, receiv- 
ing water by infiltration through the sides. * There 

^ For a further account of Jacob's Well, we may refer to the Memoirs (vol. 
ii. p. 172) of the Palestine Survey. 



22 SHEKEM. 

appears to be occasionally as much as two fathoms of 
water, but in summer the well is dry.' 

* By digging this well/ as Major Conder justly observes, 
'Jacob avoided those quarrels from which his father had 
suffered in the Philistine country, pursuing a policy of 
peace, which appears generally to have distinguished his 
actions/ 

I think we may add another thought. The well's 
mouth, or the gushing spring of living water, is the great 
scene of the gathering of women, and Jacob may well 
have wished to guard those of his own tribe from 
mingling with ' the daughters of the land.' It was 
this very thing which, after years of peaceable and 
prosperous intercourse with the Canaanite town-dwellers, 
brought about the disgraceful and horrible events so 
honestly recorded in the family annals. It seems to my 
mind, in meditating on the life of Joseph, that this * tale 
whose lightest word . . . would freeze his young blood ' 
must have been an unforgotten thing in the heart of this 
noble lad, who was of age to receive its dreadful lessons, 
and lay up the strong principles of conduct that by God's 
grace guarded him in the day of trial in the house of 
Potiphar in Egypt. 

The suppressed feelings of the father, which burned 
forth in his last days, were divined and shared by this 
beloved son of his old age, and the chastened Israel lived 
to rejoice that his Rachel's first-born was not a Reuben 
or a Judah, a Simeon or a Levi. 

The whole matter of Dinah, the outrage and the 
treacherous and villainous plot, the vengeance and the 
plunder, which broke up all their peace, and made them 
an abhorrence to the people of the land, must surely 



SHEKEM. 23 

have been of vast consequence in building up the 
character of Joseph. Yet I think it has never received 
the attention it deserves in this regard. 

Little wonder is it that after such things : ' God said 
unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-eL and dwell there : and 
make thee there an altar unto God {El), that appeared 
unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy 
brother.' Evil were the days that had brought forth 
such a tale as Jacob had to tell to his father after 
nearly thirty years. But now he was learning to lean on 
his young Joseph. With his staff had he passed over 
Jordan, but now he was returning w4th Joseph for his 
staff, the support of his declining years, and the destined 
star and sceptre of his house. 

After the complete sack of the city, there must have 
been in the hands of the Israelites a large amount of 
wealth of the kinds most prized — gold, and silver, and 
garments ; and much of this spoil would have come 
from the sanctuaries of the gods ; nay, the very gods of 
the aliens were in their possession, and ornaments of an 
idolatrous design were in their ears. Although we 
know that Rachel had hidden and kept her father's 
terdphim, yet we must not hastily suppose that there 
was extensive idolatry among her people, or in the 
camp of Jacob. But after the plunder of the city so 
murderously taken, ' all their little ones and their wives ' 
were in the hands of Israel as captives, with all that 
belonged to them ; and these would be especially in- 
tended in the expression ' all that were with Jacob,' as 
distinguished from ' his household.' Therefore it must 
have been a great and stern transaction when they puri- 
fied themselves at Jacob's command, and changed their 



24 SHEKEM. 

garments ; and he buried all the gods and the earrings 
under the oak by Shekem, which seems to be marked 
by the name of the present village of Balata (equivalent 
to Ballut, * an oak'), close to Jacob's Well, if Major Conder 
is right. 

Doubtless there was the most serious reason to 
suppose that the Khivvites, the Canaanites, and the 
Perizzites would 'pursue after ^ these treacherous and 
sanguinary sons of Israel. But the ' terror of God ' 
was upon them, and the march to the old memorable 
halting-place of Beth-el was safely accomplished, — a 
distance of only about five-and-twenty miles, — by Jacob 
' and all the people that were with him ; ' among them 
all the widows and orphans bewailing their dead. 

If we would really understand in what fashion the 
young man Joseph grew up, we must honestly picture 
to ourselves these heart-rending scenes, and the conduct 
of the various actors in them. It seems that Rebekah 
was dead before this time, but Deborah, her faithful 
nurse, who had been sent away from Kharran with 
her and the trusty Eliezer, amidst the benedictions of 
her clan so long before, was with the women of the 
tribe ; and we do not wonder to read that after all 
these things, and such a migration, she ' died ; and she 
was buried beneath Beth-el under an oak ; and the 
name of it was called The Oak of Weeping.' 

Well may they have bewailed this good and faithful 
servant of the old times ; but we may be sure that 
not all the weeping was for her. No hired mourners 
were needed at the Oak of Weeping. One would think 
that even Simeon and Levi would weep there among 
the victims of their wrath — ' all the little ones, and 



SHEKEM. 25 

the wives' whom their sword had made widows. Did 
not young Joseph feel with his father there, ' O my 
soul, come not into their secret ; unto their assembly, 
mine honour, be not thou united ! ' 

This must have been ' a sore mourning ' for Jacob, 
on his return after some thirty years to ' the gate of 
heaven,' where he had seen 

* the great world's altar stairs 
That slope through darkness up to God.' 

But he was not left unblessed, for * God appeared unto 
Jacob again,' and renewed the covenant, and gave the 
vast word of promise, and ^ went up from him,' and 
left him at ' the gate of heaven ' once more ^. 

Doubtless the sights and scenery around him drew 
Jacob once more to hallowed thoughts and higher 
conversance. ' Like as a father pitieth his own children,' 
God had dealt with Israel, in thus visiting him and 
blessing him after these sore miseries. But the heaviest 
sorrow of all was close at hand. For the next, and 
unexpected, halt of this heavy journey was for Joseph^s 
mother to bear her second son, ' as her soul was in 
departing (for she died).' Was it not the cruel wrath 

^ It is not, perhaps, out of place here to say a word as to that celestial 
vision of Jacob which had won for Beth-el its name. It seems to me that 
what Jacob saw, reaching from earth to heaven, was not a ladder, but the 
grand flight of steps which rose so beautifully by successive stages from the 
wide green levels of Chaldsea to the topmost golden shrine and dwelling of 
the god. 

And the expression ' gate of heaven ' seems to associate itself with another 
word for gate, which in Chald^a was applied to sanctuaries, as in Bab-ili, 
gate of El, and the like. 

If these suggestions are just, they will have some bearing on the tradi- 
tional associations of the 'Syrian' QA?'ami'), which came with his fathers 
from Babylonia. 



26 SHEKEM. 

of Leah's sons that cost the h'fe of Rachel ? Jacob 
was with her in this saddest day of all his evil days, 
and buried her ' by the way to Ephrath, which is 
Bethlehem.' The Vulgate (I know not on what textual 
authority) tells us ' it was springtide ' — (' eratque vernum 
tempus '). This is so sweet a ' touch of Nature ' that it 
must surely be a true memory that has floated down 
the ages. 

There seems no good ground to doubt the correctness 
of the old tradition which marks the well-known tomb 
of Rachel, not a mile north of Bethlehem. The true 
boundary line of Benjamin passes by and goes farther 
south, and thus ' agrees with the identical notice ^ of 

Rachel's Tomb, which was near Bethlehem, as being on 

« 

the border of Benjamin ^.' 

The Ramah, where Jeremiah beautifully imagines 
Rachel bewailing her children taken captive and slain, 
' must have been contiguous to Bethlehem, was subject 
to the same calamity [in the days of Herod], and being 
near Rachel's tomb, the poetic accommodation of Jere- 
miah by St. Matthew was natural and beautiful.' Thus 
writes Dr. Thomson ^, remarking that it is not strange 
that so common a name should have perished, since 
any place seated on a hill may be called Ram, 
Ramah, &c. (' height '). 

Jacob's well-beloved wife, for whose sake the long 
seven years of servitude had seemed but a few days, 
was, as Josephus says, not honoured with a burial at 
Hebron ; but to this day Jew, Moslem, and Christian 
alike respect the place of the pillar set up by Jacob 

I Sam. X. 2. 2 Conder, Bible Handbook, p. 258. 

^ The Land and the Book, p, 645. 



SHEKEM. 27 

in memory of his great heart-sorrow, ' In the way, when 
yet there was but a Httle way to come unto Ephrath.' 
It is very curious and touching that, by a misappre- 
hension of a Hebrew word, the place was called by 
pilgrims long afterwards Chabratha, ' a little way/ 

Dean Stanley tells us\ quoting Schwarz, that there 
is a cave underneath the tomb of Rachel. This makes 
it the more likely that it is the true spot ; which, indeed, 
there is no manner of reason to doubt. 

And now the soul of the loving wife and mother had 
departed, and the ancient nurse of Rebekah was dead, 
and the babe, son of the mother's anguish (Ben-oni), 
but son of the father's right hand (Ben-jamin), was left 
to be brought up with Joseph, then, it seems, about 
sixteen years old ; and to the tent of Isaac they went, 
at the old head-quarters of Abraham by Hebron. 

Yet one halting-place remained on the way, at Migdol- 
eder. And there the unutterable outrage fell on Jacob 
at the hands of his first-born Reuben. Vainly, with 
shuddering and astonishment, does any feeling heart 
try to fashion out the reality of a life so 

'heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 
And battered with the shocks of doom.' 

* Sinai and Palestine^ p. 149. 



CHAPTER III. 

HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 

^T IS an ignorant and false estimate of Jacob's 
(a character that would set him down as a man of dull 
moral perception, and drifted by shallow tides of motive. 
The very silent intensity of his feelings drove him to 
ripen them into that fulness of utterance, when * at the 
last he spake with his tongue,' which gives a monumental 
grandeur to the blessings and blame of the departing 
patriarch. 

Under the shadow of these heavy-laden boughs of 
his father's autumnal life, the young ingenuous Joseph 
was putting forth the strong shoots of his rising man- 
hood. 

At last the heart-weary pilgrim and sojourner filled 
up the circle of his thirty years' wandering ; * and Jacob 
came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre unto the city 
of Arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac 
sojourned.' 

This ancient head-quarters of the sons of Anak 
might well tempt us to linger, and we shall have some- 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 29 

thing to say about its sacred fastness and venerated 
'possession of a burying-place/ where Abraham and 
Sarah were lying in peace at the time when their grand- 
son, heir with them of the covenant of promise, came 
back laden with his sad wealth of experience, bringing 
his lost Rachel's first-born Joseph, and the new-born 
' son of his right hand,' — all that remained of her under 
the light of the sun. 

*And Jacob dwelt (or remained) in the land of the 
sojournings of his father, in the land of Canaan.' 

Then follows in the Pentateuch one of those im- 
portant titles or headings of * generations ' [toledoth), — 
a word so hard to do into English. But it is a sequel 
perfectly in keeping with the whole drift and purpose 
of Jacob's life that its current should now run in the 
channel of Joseph's destiny. How obvious and cus- 
tomary would it be if we read : * These are the genera- 
tions of Joseph,' when the lad's story was to open 
before us. But there is, to my mind, a depth of true 
meaning in the unique form of expression : ' These are 
the generations (this is the life-story) of Jacob : Joseph, 
seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his 
brethren ; ' — and so Jacob's life thenceforth is Joseph's. 
This is none the less so because we find on the disap- 
pearance of Joseph the wretched narrative of the doings 
of Judah. 

We have seen Rachel and Joseph put in the place 
of honour and of safety throughout our story, and 
rightly so distinguished. For Rachel was the true 
destined bride whom Jacob loved and won, teitax 
propositi^ with a noble constancy and fortitude, and 
accordingly we find him emphatically calling her ' my 



30 HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 

wife ' in speaking of her sons to their brethren ^ ; and 
so also is Rachel alone named in the pedigree in the 
forty-sixth chapter of Genesis, 'Jacobs wife.' This 
deliberate and unswerving preference seems to me the 
forte, and not the foible, of Jacob's character, and it 
is the very proof of the right temper of the blade, 
slight and thin though it may be beside the trusty 
strength of Abraham. 

Now Rachel was gone, and could no longer uphold 
her lad ; and the mother's heart was in Jacob, who 
righteously stood fast to Rachel's first-born son. Yet 
he let him go 'with the sons of Bilhah,' Dan and 
Naphtali, 'and with the sons of Zilpah/ Gad and 
Asher ; and he was a lad, probably in the sense of a 
serving-lad, with them, as the good and learned old 
commentator, Ainsworth, says so sensibly, ' a lad or 
yong man, which word is used not onely for yong in 
yeeres, but often for a servant or minister, — see Gen. 
xiv. 24. In this sense it noteth Joseph's humility ; and 
how his father, though he loved him most, yet brought 
him up without idlenesse or cockering.' 

It was not from any such motive as ' cockering ' that 
Jacob clad his chosen son in the garment of honour 
which figures so brightly in our imagination. Much 
learned controversy has thrown its dust upon the ' coat 
of many colours.' But I believe that its first beauty 
remains fresh after all. Whether, indeed, as Professor 
Blunt supposed ^, it may have been a sacerdotal garment 
in particular, we may doubt ; although the dignity of 
the birthright involved the patriarchal priesthood, and it 

^ Gen. xliv. 27. 

^ Undesigned Coincidences ^ p. 16. 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 31 

was as consecrated from among his brethren ('separated y 
that he wore this goodly garment, as we may well 
suppose. As to its appearance, I think, after a good 
deal of inquiry and consideration, that the Septuagint 
{xLTu>m 7TOLKi\ov) Rud the Vulgate [timicam polymitam), 
both of which convey the idea of a variegated tunic, 
a veritable ' coat of many colours,' are right ; and that 
the passivt of the Hebrew were pieces or * patches' 
of bright colours, used in the ornamental applique vjovVl 
still so much in fashion in Eastern countries. 

The Egyptian pictures show us that from a time 
long before that of Abraham the Semitic nations of 
Western Asia wore coats and kilts of very richly 
coloured designs, in white, blue, red, green, and other 
colours, and that the chieftain was distinguished by the 
especial form and ornamentation of his tunic. The 
celebrated procession of the Amu (Asiatic foreigners) 
on the wall of a subterranean tomb at Beni-Hassan, 
figured by ChampolHon, Rosellini, and Lepsius in their 
magnificent works, and reproduced in colours by Dr. 
Birch in his edition of Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptiaiis'^^ 
is the earliest example, and perhaps the best. 

We are the more inclined to be sure on this matter 
from the same word in effect {pesh) in Egyptian, as a 
verb signifying ' to divide in two parts/ and the Coptic 
posh, meaning ^ division ' ^, &c. It is thus patch-work. 

We are told that ^ Israel loved Joseph more than 
all his children, because he was the son of his old 
age/ The expression is only used besides with re- 
ference to Isaac and to Benjamin ^ and Jewish com- 

^ Gen. xlix. 26. ^ Vol. i. p. 180. 

^ Pierret, Vocabulaire^^'p. 157, 158. * Gen. xxi. 2,7; xliv. 20. 



32 HEBRON AND DOTPIAN. 

mentators have taken it as expressing the position of 
usefulness and duty occupied by that son who remained 
at home with his father as the help and staff of his 
old age ^. And doubtless such a post was really filled 
by Isaac towards Abraham, and by Joseph, and after- 
wards by Benjamin, towards their father Jacob. But 
it is spoken of Isaac at his very birth. 

It could not be but that Joseph walked in paths of 
danger among those unruly brethren, sons of different 
mothers ; but none of them born of his own, the beloved 
and lost Rachel. When we remember the outrage of 
Reuben, so recent as it was, the fearful vindictive cruelty 
of Simeon and Levi, and the ill-regulated life of Judah, 
it is easy to conjecture the difficulties and pitfalls that 
beset the life of Joseph, who on the one hand had to 
serve his brethren in the affairs of daily life, and on the 
other was bound above all to be loyal, open-hearted, 
and faithful to their father. 

Archdeacon Norris writes with truth : ' The memory 
of his mother, the charge of that motherless child whom 
he loved with more than a brother's love, and above all 
the influence of his father ever growing in spirituality — 
all this served to keep Joseph pure amid the evil 
examples of his elder brothers.' 

The ingenuous lad told his father of their ill-doing : 
and they envied and hated him, and could not even 
salute him with the ordinary courtesy of life. But he 
had not the shrewdness to suppress in their company 
things that would be sure to rouse their ill-will to 
a still greater height. 

Portentous dreams were regarded as very important 

^ Lange on Gen. xxxvii. 3. 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 



33 



omens, and Joseph told his brethren of a dream whose 
meaning was plain enough. In this dream the mixture 
of the agricultural with the pastoral life was clearly 
shown ; and in this regard it forms important material 
for our estimate of the way of life of those patriarchal 
families. In the expression, ' my sheaf arose, and also 
stood upright, and, behold, your sheaves stood round 
about and bowed down to my sheaf,' we are reminded 
of the harvest scenes in Egyptian pictures, where the 
sheaves are not set upright, as with us, but laid flat on 
their sides on the ground. In this dream the scene 
of Joseph's future supremacy, the long harvest plain 
of Egypt, w^s fore-shadowed. 

The next portended a still greater exaltation, in which 
* the sun and moon ' stood for his father and mother ; 
and ' eleven stars ' (not ' t/ie eleven stars,' as in our 
Authorised Version) were his eleven brethren. Although 
the suggestion of the signs of the Zodiac is unfounded, 
it does not follow that the series of twelve which 
Joseph's own star would have completed did not refer 
to some familiar system. Such sets of twelve stars were 
well-known at that time, as we may read in Lenormant's 
learned work, Les Origines de V Histoire ^. But I think 
the most likely system of twelve may be found in 
Professor Sayce's important paper ^ on Early Baby- 
lonian Astronomy^ where we read of ' the twelve stars 
of Martu, or the West,' whose names he recites, in- 
cluding Jupiter, Mercury (the planet which was 'the 
lord of the men of Kharran,' Joseph's own birth-place), 
and Mars^ with nine fixed stars. 

1 Vol. i. pp. 501, 591. 

2 Trans. Soc, Bib, Arch, iii. p. 1 76. 

C 



34 HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 

This second dream Joseph told to his father, who 
was involved in it as well as his brethren : ' and his 
father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this 
dream that thou hast dreamed ? Shall I and thy mother 
and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves 
to thee to the earth?' The eleven stars clearly show 
that Benjamm was already left in Rachel's void place ; 
but then how could his mother shine upon her Joseph 
in this strange dream ? Jacob kept it in his heart, 
with many an unspoken thing beside. And this was 
the turning-point in Joseph's life. His brethren were 
bold enough to go back with the flock to the scene 
of their evil exploits ; and Jacob's heart jpisgave him 
as to their peace, and the peace of the flock ; and, at 
his father's bidding, the son of his home set forth to 
inquire of their welfare, like David so long after. 

A man found him ' wandering in the field ' at 
Shekem, and doubtless his thoughts were wandering 
too, for this was the scene of his harvest-dream, no 
less than of the dreadful and the tender thoughts of 
father, mother, sister, brethren. Very easily might 
Joseph have excused himself for returning to his father 
at Hebron. But the man told him where to find his 
brethren, and the brave lad went on to Dothan. He 
had drunk of Jacob's Well for the last time. 

The distance he traversed was more than fifteen 
English miles before Joseph found his brethren, as he 
had been told, at Dothan, which still keeps its old name. 
Tell Dothan. This place was an important halting- 
place on the great caravan-road from Damascus into 
Egypt, and we find the name (Duthina) inscribed not 
very long afterwards in the Karnak Lists of Thoth- 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 35 

mes III. This identification was first proposed by the 
late learned Rev. D. H. Haigh^ in 1875, and is generally 
accepted. ' Dothan/ writes Canon Tristram, ' is the 
very richest of pasture-grounds — a little upland plain, 
with a smooth hill, at the southern end of which are 
some ruins, and a fine spring bursting out at its foot.' 

Major Conder mentions two wells very near together, 
and in fact there are many cisterns of this kind, con- 
tracted towards the top in the shape of a bottle, and 
for the most part dry even in the winter. One in 
particular gives its name to the khan close by, ' the 
Khan of Joseph's Pit.' The place was a very orchard 
of lemons, oranges, and pomegranates not many years 
since, as we are told by the Abbe Vigouroux in his 
learned and valuable work, La Bible et les Decouvertes 
Modernes ^. 

Here it was then that the brethren of Joseph saw 
their young brother drawing near to them, easily re- 
cognized by his handsome tunic. But while he was yet 
far off they took counsel together to kill the ' master of 
dreams,' and throw him into one of the deep wells ; and 
say, * A wild beast has eaten him,' and see what would 
become of his dreams. We know the story. They saw 
the anguish of his soul, but would not hear. Reuben 
saved his life by persuading them not to kill him first, 
but simply to throw him into an empty pit, intending 
to draw him out and take him to their father. And 
they did it, and Reuben left them ; but when he re- 
turned there was no Joseph. They had sold him to 
Ishmaelite traders from the land of Midian, going down 
from Gilead into Egypt. This was Judah's doing, and 

^ Zeitschr, f. Aeg. Spr, p. loi. ^ Vol. ii. p. 9. 

C 2 



36 HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 

once more the noble lad's life was saved on that day. 
But the Ishmaelites paid their twenty pieces of silver 
(a cheap bargain), and took their goodly slave among 
their other merchandise, and went their way up the 
gradual ascent, by the road which Joseph had so 
eagerly traversed on his anxious father's errand. 

It is easy to ascertain that spices must have formed 
a most important part of the traffic with Egypt, where 
enormous quantities were needed for compounding the 
incense of the temple-worship, and for embalming the 
dead. The three kinds of produce mentioned are 
the same as those afterwards sent by Jacob as a gift 
to Joseph, namely, the gum of the Astragalus traga- 
cantka, still called naka'at by the Arabs, the identical 
name used in the narrative, nekoth ; the balm of Gilead, 
tsori ; and the ladamim, from the Cistus ladaniferus^ 
which was introduced into Egypt for cultivation in 
Ptolemaic times, and before that imported from the 
East. 

Dr. Ebers has found two of these, under the names 
nekpat and tsara, among the ingredients of the celebrated 
incense Kyphi in an Egyptian papyrus^. These precious 
things were brought from the Lebanon and Gilead, and 
the spices of Canaan and of Syria are repeatedly 
mentioned in general terms in the papyri of Egypt. 
But however valuable these gums and aromatics were 
in the eyes of the Ishmaelites of Midian, it is certain 
that slaves were still more coveted ; and male and 
female slaves from Khal^ or Syria, were most highly 
esteemed, and, as Brugsch writes, 'were procured by 

Aegypten, ^c, p. 290. 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 37 

distinguished Egyptians at a high price, whether for 
their own houses or for service in the holy dweUings of 
the Egyptian gods^.' 

There is something in the gradation of value among 
slaves in Egypt which especially affects the life of Joseph 
in more w^ays than one. He was, like his mother Rachel, 
and Sarah before her, fair of countenance, and the same 
beauty of complexion which brought Sarah into so great 
peril would make Joseph the more esteemed as a slave. 
Dr. Ebers writes on this subject with regard to the 
Egyptians : ' Their complexion itself had become 
darkened through climatic influence and obscuration of 
the blood by admixture of race with blacks, for on the 
one hand we see, even on the oldest monuments, the men 
and women of rank painted more fair than the ordinary 
man ; on the other hand, the word ami, the fair-com- 
plexioned, stands distinctly for " belonging to a higher 
class," and, taken in opposition to /io7i and /lon-f (male 
and female slave), used for " free man " in the sentence : 
"fair people 5, slaves and female slaves with their 
children 1579^." It seems likely that the fair and goodly 
Joseph would not be regarded as an ignoble captive, but 
as high and well-born, when '• stolen out of the land of 
the Hebrews." ' 

In the anguish of his soul, Joseph was carried away past 
his father's green valley and deep well, past his mother's 
grave, past the very home at Hebron, on the distant 
height, where Jacob had so lately bid him farewell on his 
brotherly errand. If he even saw them now, it was for 
the last time. But it is perhaps more likely that the 
Ishmaelites wrapped him up on the camel, for fear of 

1 Hist. vol. i. p. 222. 2 Aegypten, &-c. p. 52. 



38 HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 

rescue or flight, as Sir Samuel Baker's lad was hurried 
away hidden in a gum-sack ^ 

Meanwhile the cruel and unnatural brethren carry out 
to the uttermost their scheme. Jacob had used the 
' goodly raiment ' of Esau and the dainty meat of the 
kid to deceive his father. His sons bring the coat of 
Joseph dipped in the blood of a kid to their father, with 
the cynical challenge : * Know now whether it be thy 
son's coat or no.' 

Jacob rends his mantle and clothes his loins in sack- 
cloth, and refuses comfort : ' For I will go down to my 
son mourning to Sheol.' Of course he did not mean ' into 
the grave,' as it is unfortunately given in our Authorised 
Version, but into Hades, where he should yet meet his 
Joseph, whom the wild beast had devoured : while his 
own wearied body might lie in the Makpelah, or beside 
Rachel in the wayside of Ephrath. 

The misery of Jacob must have been all the more 
severe, since this ' most foul and most unnatural ' act of 
cruelty must have been committed almost immediately 
on Jacob's coming to Hebron, as Dean Alford has shown 
in a note^ to this effect. Isaac's age was sixty at Jacob's 
birth ^. Jacob was one hundred and twenty years old at 
Isaac's death, and one hundred and thirty at the migra- 
tion to Egypt ^, when Joseph was between thirty-nine 
and forty ^. But, as Joseph was seventeen when sold, 
and Jacob's migration was twenty-three years later, 
Isaac must have survived Joseph's sale between twelve 

^ Vigouroux, La Bible, <5^c. vol. ii. p. 20. 

^ Genesis, p. 158. 

^ Gen. XXV. 26. * Gen. xlvii. 9, 

^ Cf. Gen. xli. 46, 47, and xlv. 6. 



HEBRON AND DOTHAN. 39 

and thirteen years, until the time of his grandson's 
exaltation in Egypt. Hence also Joseph was sold im- 
mediately on Jacob's coming to Hebron. And how soon 
after his mother's death ^ ! 

^ Delitzsch, New Commentary^ Gen., vol. ii. pp. 219, 237, 265. 



CHAPTER IV, 



THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 



^■ig^HERE seems more and more reason to hold the 
^ [j ancient belief that Joseph entered and ruled Egypt 
during the domination of the Hyksos, or Shepherd-kings. 
The best historians of Egypt support this conclusion, as 
Birch, Brugsch, Maspero, Wiedemann. Eusebius (about 
A.D. 300) gives the tradition, and George the Syncellus 
(about A.D. 800) specifies Aph5phis as the Pharaoh of 
Joseph. The name is an authentic record of the title of 
two, at all events, of the Hyksos kings, both in Manetho s 
lists and on the monuments. 

The name Apepi is inscribed on the right shoulder of 
the grim and striking sphinxes found among the ruins 
of San (Zoan). It is true that Professor Maspero 
considers this as an usurpation of an older statue. But 
Mr. Flinders Petrie still believes that the stern features 
which look out of those shaggy lions' manes are really 
those of the Shepherd-king. Moreover, in his last and 
highly important excavations among the ruins of 
Bubastis (the Pibeseth of Scripture and Tel-Basta of 



THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 41 

the present day), M. Naville has recovered twin statues 
in fragments, which he believes to be those of a later 
Apepi (probably of Joseph's time). The head and other 
portions of one of these are now in the British Museum, 
and we will say more of them by and by. 

There is a very attractive mystery in the origin and 
doings of these alien dynasties who ruled Egypt during 
some centuries, and are known to us under the general 
name of Shepherd-kings. From very early times the 
delta of the Nile had been, like the country at the head 
of the Persian Gulf, occupied by a mixed population, and 
liable to great changes and dangers of invasion. At last, 
after the thirteenth Egyptian dynasty of Pharaohs, a 
real victory was achieved by foreign lords, who became 
Kings of Lower Egypt and over-lords of the Upper Valley 
of the Nile for five centuries, as it is generally believed. 
As in other cases of conquest by hordes driven on from 
without, the questions of race are complicated. It does 
not follow from the ethnic affinities of the great mass of 
incursive population that the leaders are of the same 
race. Rather than this it is often true that they belong 
to some superior pedigree, and wield the physical forces 
of turbulent clans, who gladly follow the more sagacious 
and successful leaders. 

After all the sifting of this question it is becoming 
more and more credible that the high-road of this great 
migration led across the Euphrates from the East to 
Northern Syria, and so through Palestine, and that some 
strong impulses setting in from beyond the Tigris (as 
in the case of Kedorla'omer and kindred over-lords 
from Elam) drove on the great migratory hordes with 
wives and children, herds and horses, in the same 



42 THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 

fashion as the Libyan tribes of the West fell on Lower 
Egypt in the days of Merenptah, and afterwards in the 
reign of Rameses IIL 

It is an interesting thing that the title Salatis, given for 
the earliest Hyksos ruler, is the Chaldaean shallit, and that 
in Gen. xlii. 6, Joseph, Viceroy of a Hyksos Apepi, is 
called hash-shallit, the ruler. Moreover, it is also 
curious that (as Lenormant has noticed) many centuries 
later the Assyrians gave the Pharaoh, besides that title, 
the appellation Shiltannu (sultan), which they did not 
apply to any other sovereign^. 

It must have been towards the close of the long rule of 
the Shepherd -kings that the lad Joseph, seventeen years 
of age, was brought down in the long caravan of the 
Midianites through the fortified frontier of Eastern 
Egypt and sold into slavery to Potiphar, who is twice 
noted in the narrative as ' an Egyptian ' in Egypt, which 
is very natural when the sovereign and those of his 
race were foreign conquerors. Here he was, although 
under bondage, in very high service in the retinue of a 
chief officer of the court. Syrian slaves were greatly 
valued, and especially those well-born and highly edu- 
cated, and apt for intelligent service. 

Potiphar appears to have commanded the body-guard 
of the Pharaoh. His name is purely Egyptian. Dr. 
Malan resolves it as Pet-p-har, 'given by Horus.' Poti- 
phera is Pet-p-ra (the gift of Ra, the sun-god), and it is 
curious to find in a papyrus of the Louvre both the gods 
combined in the name Peti-hor-p'ra^. 

Joseph, deservedly trusted, falls under the fierce resent- 

^ Hist. Anc. de V Orient, 9th ed. vol. ii. p. 147. 
2 Deveria, MSS. Egyptiens, p. 100. 



THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 43 

ment of his master's abandoned wife. It is interesting 
to find this incident in the Egyptian story of ' The Two 
Brothers.' Whether it is an echo of the history of Joseph 
is doubtful. At any rate, we are show^n that an Egyptian 
writer would bring such an episode into a romantic narra- 
tive, the celebrated Orbiney papyrus. The position of a 
trusted slave as major-domo in charge of all the house- 
hold and property was a thoroughly Egyptian institution. 

The lord of Joseph throws him into the royal prison, 
which is here called beth hassohar, which Dr. Ebers has 
explained as an Egyptian expression, bita sohar^ the 
house of the citadel, v/here the chief of the guard, or 
commandant, would reside. Here he meets with two 
other prisoners of high position, the chief butler and the 
chief baker of the Pharaoh. They relate to him the 
dreams that had troubled their minds, and Joseph ex- 
plains them. We need not prove the attention paid in 
Egypt, as in other ancient nations, to dreams and visions 
of the night. 

A tablet on the breast of the great sphinx commemo- 
rates a remarkable dream of Thothmes IV. as he lay 
weary under his shadow ; and readers of Egyptian lore 
will never forget the story of the possessed Princess of 
Bakhtan. With regard to the dreams themselves, they 
are thoroughly Egyptian in their scene and circumstances, 
especially the subsequent dream of Pharaoh himself. 
The Nile-stream and flood, and the sacred kine, seven 
in number, belong entirely to the religion of the land ; 
and it has been shown by the late Canon Cook and 
others, that the very words that are used in the narrative, 
as also in the Book of Exodus, are constantly Egyptian 
words. 



44 THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 

With regard to the pressing of the grapes into the 
Pharaoh's cup, which has been difficult to explain, Sir 
Gardner Wilkinson writes that ' grape juice, or wine of 
the vineyard (one of the most delicious beverages of a 
hot climate, and one that is commonly used in Spain, 
and other countries of the present day), was among the 
most noted denominations introduced into the list of 
offerings on the monuments^.' 

The punishment of the chief baker seems to have 
been decapitation, which was an Egyptian punishment, 
followed by the hanging of the body on a gibbet, as 
Amenhotep II. hung the bodies of some slain Kings of 
Syria on his galley, and afterwards on the walls of 
a fortress. The dream of the Pharaoh introduces 
Joseph to his presence, and the circumstance that Joseph 
shaved himself is again absolutely Egyptian, for Semitic 
people have ever abhorred this ceremony, which was 
essential in the eyes of the Egyptians ; and we must 
remember that the Shepherd-kings kept the Egyptian 
ceremonial at their court. The exaltation of an Asiatic 
foreigner to be a great officer of State might have taken 
place at any period under the Pharaohs, but most easily 
under the Shepherd-kings, as they were themselves 
Asiatic foreigners. The phrase attributed to the Pha- 

^ I would add that the Hebrew word for pressing the grapes is only here 
used in the whole Bible. It is shakhat, in Chaldee td n r, sakhat, * to squeeze 
out grapes, Gen. xl. ii' (Gesenius). But an Egyptian verb of similar 
sound, sekht, is used to denote the moulding of bricks by pressure of the 
clay (Pierret, Vocab. p. 536). If it be thought that the office of chief baker 
was not of great importance, it is well to know that the Scribe of the King's 
Table, ' Chief of the Loaves,' commemorated by a tablet mentioned by 
M. Chabas, was also First Lieutenant of the King, or Prime Minister. The 
great Egyptologist just quoted has treated of the various offices mentioned 
in connection with Joseph in his Melanges Egypiologiques^ 3'"- serie, p. 137. 



THE EGYPT OF JOSEPH. 45 

raoh, * a man in whom the Spirit of God is,' would be as 
natural in the mouth of an Egyptian as of a Chaldaean, 
for such expressions are found in very ancient passages of 
the Ritual. 



CHAPTER V, 



JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 



^231^^ "^^ come to the highly interesting account of 
the honours bestowed upon Joseph, and the 
titles of dignity conferred upon him ; and here we are 
thoroughly at home in the Egyptian Court. ' Pharaoh took 
off the ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand/ 
This was the formal delivery of office by the signet or 
seal-ring. This is called ^ed in Egyptian, in Hebrew nWD, 
/i7i£'er-nng. It had a stone, or a flat surface of gold, en- 
graven for sealing. Such Egyptian rings are among the 
most beautiful jewels in our museums. A most rare and 
interesting specimen is described in the catalogue of the 
collection of M. Allemant (Ancien Interprete de S. M. 
le Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz), exhibited in London in the year 
1878: 'No. 705. San-Tanis. Black jasper. Stone of 
a ring or seal graven in intaglio {grave en creiix) on both 
sides. On the front a winged serpent and two Semitic 
signs ; on the back a Hebrew inscription. Epoch of the 
Shepherd-kings, XVHth dynasty. A very curious and 
rare piece ; probably unique.' It is much to be regretted 



JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 47 

that the signs and inscription are not given. This relic 
is a most important illustration of Semitic influence in 
the Delta at the very period of which we are treating. 
The winged serpent is very suggestive. 

A magnificent tablet of an earlier age described 
by de Rouge commemorates ' Antef, Prime Minister 
("First Deputy of the King")/ The long eulogy has 
many points which illustrate the subsequent dignities 
of Joseph, ' functionary of t/ie signet .... chief of 
the chiefs, .... alone in the multitude, he bears the 
zvord to men ; he declares all affairs in the double 
Egypt ; he speaks on all matters in the place of secret 
counsel. When he enters he is applauded, when he 
issues forth, he is praised. . . . The princes hold them- 
selves attentive to his mouth .... all his words come 
to pass without (resistance), like that which issues from 
the mouth of God^'. Nothing can be more close to the 
details of Joseph's honours than such expressions as 
these. The words in Genesis xli. 40, 'At thy mouth 
shall all my people kiss,' are very characteristic. Before 
the Pharaoh a subject would kiss the ground. The 
ordinary attitude of submissive attention was that of 
kissing the hand before the master : * Be seated, thy 
hand to thy mouth/ as Pierret quotes from a papyrus. 
But Chabas supposes that the phrase indicates the 
elevation of Joseph to the dignity mentioned in an 
inscription of the XVIIIth dynasty by the title which he 
renders as ' Grande Bouehe Superieure dans le pays tout 
entier' We may also compare the title, 'The Mouth 
of the King of Upper Egypt/ cited by Maspero^. 

^ Monuments de Louvre ^ P- 73- 

^ The title translated * Father to Pharaoh ' (Gen. xlv. 8) represents an 



4^ JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 

The collar of gold, of different degrees of elaboration 
and splendour, was worn by all Egyptians of high rank, 
and bestowed with much ceremony by the sovereign on 
those whom he delighted to honour. It is called by an 
Egyptian name rebid, in Egyptian repit, ' The greatest 
honour conferred on Joseph,' says Sir G. Wilkinson, ' was 
permission to ride in the second chariot which he — the king 
— had. This was a royal chariot, no one being allowed to 
appear in his own in the presence of majesty, except in 
battle/ 

This brings before us a notable addition to the force 
and pomp of Egypt since the days of Abraham. The 
Pharaoh has chariots, and horses are mentioned as be- 
longing not only to the court but to the people. Now^ 
previously to the Hyksos dynasties, there is no more 
evidence of horses in the monuments than in the Scrip- 
tures ; but in two celebrated inscriptions of the age now 
in question, in the tombs of El-Kab, we find them men- 
tioned ; and it appears that horses were introduced from 
the East into Egypt during the rule of the Hyksos. 

M. Naville writes, * The other day I came across a 
picture which reminded me strongly of Joseph and his 
employment ^ It has been taken from a tomb. There 

Egyptian rank '■ Ab en Peraa/ the Head of the Court. And the title *• Adon ' 
is also truly Egyptian, and designates the office of deputy of the Pharaoh 
(Brugsch, Rev. Egyptologique^ vol. i. p. 22). 

In the Museum at Turin is a very important sepulchral tablet com- 
memorating the rank and virtues of Beka, superintendent of the royal 
granary, overseer of Upper and Lower Egypt, of the date of the XlXth or 
XXth dynasty. Chabas, in describing this tablet, remarks that Beka's 
functions must have included those of Joseph at the court of the Pharaoh 
{Trans. S. Bib. Arch. vol. v. p. 461. Papyrus Abbott ^ p. 7). 

1 It is in Lepsius, Denkm, vol. iii. pp. 76, 77, and Prisse, Monuments ^ pi. 
39-42. 



JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 49 

you see the King Amenophis III. sitting on his throne, 
and before him one of his ministers, Chaemha, who 
seems to have had a very high position. He is called 
the Chief of the gra?iaries of the whole kmgdom. Behind 
him are a great number of officials of different classes, 
bringing the tribute of the whole land. This man seems 
to have had nobody above him, as he speaks to the 
king himself; and he had under his command all the 
tax-gatherers, and all that concerned the granaries. Be- 
sides, he has this strange title, the Eyes of the King in the 
towns of the Souths and his Ears in the Provinces of the 
North ; which implies that he knew the land perfectly ; 
and that, like Joseph^ " he had gone throughout all the 
land of Egypt ^ ". I think Brugsch mentions Chaemha 
in his history, but I do not remember whether he points 
to his resemblance with Joseph, which I find particularly 
striking; considering that Joseph seems to have been 
a purely civil officer, and to have had nothing to do 
with the military class, which, however, must have been 
powerful under Apophis, who had wars during his reign.' 
When Joseph was conducted in state in the royal 
chariot through the capital, the cry of the heralds 
before him was ^ Abrek ! ^ a word which has never yet 
received a fully-accepted explanation. Chabas says that 
it is still the cry to the camel to kneel ^. The word 
has been compared with the Assyrian abarakkti, from 
Akkadian abrik, 'seer/ But Brugsch explains it b)^ 
the Egyptian word bark^ ' to kneel, to adore ^^ Mr. 
Lepage Renouf has, however, met with a passage in a 
hieratic papyrus lately acquired by the British Museum 

^ Gen. xli. 46. ^ Etudes, p. 412. 

2 Pierret, Vocab. p. 126. 

D 



50 JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 

which appears to contain the expression [abtc-re-k), which 
he regards as signifying 'thy commandment is the 
object of our desire ; ' ' we are/ in other words, * at thy 
service^/ 

This is, I believe, the last proposed explanation of 
the enigmatic abrek. Professor Sayce has, however, 
kindly furnished me, at my request, with a note on 
the Assyrian derivation: ' Abfek^' he writes, 'is the 
Assyro-Babylonian abrikku, which was borrowed from 
the Akkadian ^^r//^, according to a tablet (82.2.18). The 
word also appears in Assyrian under the form abarakku. 
The name is interpreted '' seer '' in the lexical tablets. 
The title would have been given to Joseph in conse- 
quence of his interpretation of dreams.' 

The Pharaoh gave a new, and doubtless Egyptian, 
name to his viceroy, which is expressed in Hebrew 
letters as nJyD nJDV. This was in accordance with custom 
in such cases, but there has been very much con- 
jecture as to the composition of the Egyptian title and 
its significance. It has been noticed by Mariette and 
Lenormant that Ka-mes, the Theban king, about con- 
temporary with our Apepi, assumed a title, Tsaf-en-to, 
which means nourisher of the land ; and this entirely 
agrees with the former part of Joseph's new name^. 
The latter part of Joseph's title, njya, p-dnkh, which 

^ Proc. S. Bib. Arch. 1888, p. 7. 

2 Brugsch, in noticing this, adds in a note : * Proper names composed 
with Sezaf', or with zaf^ are not rare in Egyptian. It is thus that the name 
of a king of theXIIIth dynasty begins with this wordSezaf-^ and that two other 
Pharaohs of the same dynasty are called Mer-zefau (' friend of abundance \ 
2.ndi Neb-zefau (* master of abundance'). Histoire d'Egypte^ p. 169. He 
explains that : * The country called " the district of the town Aa-ankh '* 
(literally "" town of life ") is the same that the Greek geographers designated 



JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 51 

literally means the life^ is capable of several explana- 
tions. Brugsch would refer it to a god of an Eastern 
nome of the Delta, as we have seen, but Pierret gives the 
word as used for a title of the Pharaoh ; and if this were 
so at the time in question, the meaning would be very 
appropriate to Joseph as 'Nourisher of the land of the 
Pharaoh.' I cannot say that the suggestion of Steindorff ^ 
commends itself to my mind. 

The Pharaoh provides for his high minister as a fitting 
wife a lady of very exalted rank, daughter of the high- 
priest of On^. M. Naville has very well said : ' I believe 
that the king did it on purpose to have one of his men 
connected with the most ancient and the most venerated 
college of priests. The importance of Heliopolis as a 
religious centre comes out in many inscriptions, and it is 
natural that Apophis should attempt to create a link 
between his government and those priests, who most 
likely were of pure Egyptian origin. The priests in 
general must have been very powerful at that time, when 
we see Joseph respecting all their privileges, while he 
taxed so heavily the rest of the country ^' 

The name of Joseph's wife nJDN* (Asenath) is ex- 

by the name of the Sethroitic Nome. It is this country, situated near Tanis, 
where Joseph and the Hebrews lived during the time of their sojourn in Egypt.' 
It is true that the god Turn is called in inscriptions found by M. Naville at 
Pithom, Nuter ad ankh, * the great living god' {Store-city of Pit horn, pp. 
15, 16 ; pi. vii. A). Dr. Wiedemann is of opinion that * the most likely Egyp- 
tian etymology is Pa-sent-en-pa-Ankh, ^' the strengthener of life " (of. Lep- 
sius, ChronoL p. 382)' {Sammhing Altaegyptischer Worter, &^c. p. 21). 

^ Zeitschr.f. Aeg. Spr, 1889, p. 41. 

^ See Appendix B. 

^ Dr. Kurt Sethe has given an account of the worship, holy places, and 
ministry of Ra during the old empire of Egypt in the Zeiischrift for 1889, 
pp. Ill etseqq.f in which the exact hieroglyphic titles of the priests and pro- 

D 2 



5^ JOSEPH IN OFFICE. 

plained by Egyptologists as 'belonging to Neith/ the 
great goddess. Her father is characteristically called 
' the gift of Ra,' the sun-god. 

To return now to the state of Egypt at the time of 
Joseph's viceroyalty. The time, as we believe, was 
drawing towards the close of the domination of the 
Hyksos. The reluctant patriots of Egypt kept up and 
strengthened at Thebes the rival power of native princes, 
whose most interesting representative, the last of the 
three kings called Seqenen-Ra, now lies in the flesh in 
the Egyptian Museum of Gizeh, near Cairo, bearing 
fearful marks of the wounds by which he died in battle. 

There is a celebrated papyrus (sadly mutilated) which 
tells of the culmination of a long rivalry of religions, the 
Sutekh-worship of the Hyks6s being put forward in an 
exclusive way by the last Apepi in an embassy to one 
of the Seqenen-Ras. It has been debated which of the 
three successive kings of this name who ruled at Thebes 
this may have been, but it now seems likely that the 
third, the ' very valiant,' was the man, and although he 
is there said to be merely a /laq, or subordinate ruler, yet 
in his time he assumed full Pharaonic titles. It is, how- 
ever, to be remembered that it was some time later than 
this that the founder of the XVIIIth Egyptian dynasty, 
Aahmes, succeeded in driving the foreign lords right 
out of Egypt, and pursuing them into Southern Palestine. 

phets of the great sun-god are recorded. That god was worshipped under 
the symbolism of the obelisk, which had its endowments and hierarchy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Joseph's administration. 

J^ GES before this the splendour of Egyptian civili- 
jfe^ zation had been fully developed, and the monu- 
ments, especially of the great IVth and Xllth dynasties, 
bear witness to a refinement and elaboration in the arts 
of social life which is altogether unequalled elsewhere at 
those early periods of the world's history. 

The regal pomp of the court, the perfect order of 
administration down to the lowest details, the disciplined 
subordination of all ranks and offices, the magnificence 
of art, and the high development of agriculture and 
horticulture, under the genial climate, and with the ferti- 
lizing conditions of the Nile-floods and irrigation, con- 
cern us here in estimating the material which Joseph 
had in his hands. 

For the days of despotic violence and destruction 
were long past, and probably the ordered system of 
government was as well established and worked as 
smoothly as that of British India in the present day. 
Especially we must now regard the culture of the black 



54 Joseph's administration. 

and fruitful soil of the long green Nile valley, dependent 
wholly as it is upon the annual rising and overflow of 
the Nile. The details of farm-work are before our eyes 
in all their branches. 

In our museums we have implements of husbandry, to 
which Mr. Flinders Petrie has now added most primeval 
sickles of wood, the cutting edge of which is formed of 
flint saws. He has also brought home the wooden corn- 
shovel of a date earlier than Joseph, and the wooden 
hoes and ploughshares fit for the light soil. The grain 
was sown broadcast from the hand, and trodden by flocks 
of sheep into the moistened soil. When ripe for harvest 
it was reaped high up towards the ear, and not with short 
stubble as by us. The sheaves were bound and laid flat 
on the ground. The grain was thrashed out by the 
treading of oxen, and when winnowed was put into sacks, 
cleverly made to balance on the shoulder, and then 
poured into the great granaries through openings in the 
roof. 

All these operations were methodically carried out 
under the eyes of stewards, and bailiffs, and gangers ; 
and registered by scribes with that perfection of method 
so characteristic of the Egyptians, the actual inventors 
of red tape. 

Although it may appear at first sight in the Book of 
Genesis that all the produce of the seven rich years was 
stored, yet the definite proposal in Gen. xli. 34 to ^ fifth 
the land ' must guide us in construing the rest ; and, 
as Archdeacon Norris has shown, it is likely enough 
that, taking into account the extreme productiveness of 
the seven plentiful years, Joseph had ' in his granaries 
enough to sustain the people at the ordinary rate of con- 



JOSEPH'S ADMINISTRATION. 55 

sumption during seven years of absolute barrenness.' 
But of course the example would be largely followed, 
and all would not depend on the government stores. 
It was not till 'all the land of Egypt was famished ' that 
the people ' cried to Pharaoh for bread.' 

M. Naville remarks : ' How very Egyptian verse 49 
of the same chapter; compare line 11 of the great tablet 
of Abu Simbel : '• I will give thee com in abundance, to 
enrich Egypt in all times ; the wheat is like the sand of 
the shore ; the granaries reach the sky, and the heaps 
are like mountains." ' 

Dean Milman remarks on the agrarian law of the 
Hebrews : 'The outline of this plan may have been 
Egyptian. The king of that country, during the 
administration of Joseph, became proprietor of the 
whole land, and leased it out on a reserved rent of 
one-fifth, exactly the two-tenths or tithes paid by the 
Israelites ^' Mr. Finn writes : ' To this day in Palestine 
the cultivator gives the owner of the land one-fifth, if he 
has found not only labour, but cattle and seed. If the 
owner gives cattle and seed as well, the cultivator only 
gets one-fifth of the produce ^.' 

The Arab historians El-Makrizi and Abd-el-Latif, of 
the eleventh and twelfth Christian centuries, describe fear- 
ful famines in Egypt, the former of which lasted seven 
years. The details of starvation are full of horror, and 
are partly given by Dean Stanley. 

As regards the famine of Joseph's own time, it has 

^ History of the Jews, vol. i. p. 231. 

^ During Syrian rule the Jews ' paid one-third of the produce of all that 
was sown, and one half of that from fruit-trees' ( Edersheim, y^z^/zV /^ Social 
Life^ p. 52). On the division of the land in Egypt, see Revue Egyptologi- 
que, 1883, p. loi. 



56 JOSEPH'S ADMINISTRATION. 

been noticed that from an earlier age it was the boast of 
Egyptian governors that they had so provided for culti- 
vation and storage that there had been no starvation in 
their times ; or that famines had been relieved by their 
providence and energy. 

But Brugsch has stated his conviction that an inscrip- 
tion in a tomb at El-Kab refers to the identical famine. 
In this inscription the deceased governor, named Baba, 
declares that he collected the harvests, and so provided 
that when a famine arose lasting many years he issued 
corn to the hungry. There is reason to believe that this 
Baba, ' about the same time that Joseph exercised his 
office, under one of the Hyksos kings, lived and worked 
under the native King Ra-Sekenen Taa III. in the old 
town of El-Kab. The only just conclusion is that 
the many years of famine in the time of Baba must 
precisely correspond with the seven years of famine 
under Joseph's Pharaoh, one of the Shepherd-kings^.' 
This Theban king is the same subject and rival of 
Apepi of whom I have before spoken. It may be 
that the governor of El-Kab acted under the supreme 
direction of Joseph, for it is expressly stated in 
the papyrus before quoted {Sallier Papyrus) that the 
whole land brought its productions to Apepi at Avaris 
(Hauar), and that Seqenen-Ra was under him as his 
suzerain. Thus, the worthy Baba may well have acted 
on general directions from the Delta. He says, ' I issued 
corn to the city.' Joseph ' laid up the food in the cities,' 
and ' as for the people, he removed them to cities, from 
(one) end of the borders of Egypt even to the (other) 
end thereof.' That is, where the food was stored, thither 

* Egypt under the Pharaohs , vol. i. p. 262. 



JOSEPH'S ADMINISTRATION. 57 

he gathered the people out of the famine-stricken open 
country. 

With regard to the annual overflow of the Nile, Sir 
Francis de Winton, in his presidential address to the 
Geographical Section of the British Association at New- 
castle, has given his opinion in view of Mr. Stanley's 
intelligence of the desiccation of the Lake Albert Nyanza. 
' For his own part, Sir Francis held that this rise and fall 
were mainly caused by the rapid growth of the tropical 
water-plants. During the dry season this vegetation 
increased enormously, and at the first rains large masses 
of aquatic growth were loosened by the rising of the 
waters. These masses, in the form of floating islands, 
passed downwards on the bosom of the flowing waters, 
and, on reaching a wide and shallow part of the river, 
gradually collected until they formed a dam of sufficient 
density to obstruct the progress of the river, and the 
water thus arrested found a temporary lodgment in the 
lake of Albert Nyanza, causing it to overflow its normal 
boundaries. At length the vegetable dam could no longer 
withstand the weight and pressure of the water bearing 
upon it. A portion gave way, a channel was opened, and 
the river, hurrying on to the sea, overflowed the banks of 
the Lower Nile, and drained the lake to a lower level. 
The fact was that the Albert Nyanza was nothing more 
than a huge backwater of the Upper Nile.' 

It is right in connection with this subject to record the 
opinion lately expressed by Sir Samuel Baker^ as to the 
possible cause of a protracted famine in Egypt. In the 
year 1888, great alarm was created by the low state of 
the Nile, and, in a letter to the Times, the distinguished 
traveller above named expressed himself thus on ' the 



58 JOSEPH'S ADMINISTRATION. 

necessity of keeping a firm hold upon the basin of the 
Nile, as an enemy in possession of the Blue Nile and the 
Atbara river could, by throwing a dam across the empty 
bed during the dry season, effectually deflect the stream 
when risen by the Abyssinian rains, and thus prevent 
the necessary flow towards Egypt. 

* This might be effected in the Atbara river with the 
greatest ease, as the bed is perfectly dry during four or 
five months of the year^ and all the necessary material 
is furnished for the dam by the fringe of forest upon 
the banks. 

' Huge sacks made from the fibrous bark of the 
mimosa are manufactured in large quantities by the 
nomadic Arabs for the transport of gum-arabic ; these 
are exactly suited as sand-bags for the formation of a 
dam, while the dom palms and mimosas are present for 
piles and fascines. I have seen a spot, about 2^0 miles 
from the mouth of the Atbara, where the river might be 
deflected without difficulty, and be forced to an eastern 
course toward the Red Sea. 

' This would be an engineering work well within the 
native capability. The Atbara, flowing east, would 
never reach the Red Sea, but it would inundate a vast area 
of desert lands, and render them fruitful, through a 
deposit of mud which now passes down to Lower Egypt. 
The Atbara river is the stream that has actually formed 
the Delta by the rich deposit of soil brought down from 
the fertile plains on the borders of Abyssinia. Without 
the Atbara river, Egypt would obtain only a scant supply 
of water, and would be certainly deprived of the fertiliz- 
ing element of the annual inundation. 

' I have always believed, since I carefully examined 



JOSEPH S ADMINISTRATION. 59 

the river system of the Nile tributaries, that the seven 
years of famine in Lower Egypt during the time of Joseph 
were occasioned by a stoppage of the Atbara river ; also 
of the Rahat and Binder affluents of the Blue Nile. 

'The Ethiopians were continually at war with the 
Egyptians, and they possessed the control of the Nile, 
by damming and deflecting the waters of those affluents. 
I do not presume to say that this was known to Joseph, 
who accordingly made the necessary arrangements for a 
great storage of provisions ; but I can positively state 
that the plan is feasible, and that should any European 
be in command at the rebellious centre of the Soudan, 
his first strategical operation would be to deprive Egypt 
of the water that is necessary for her existence, and by 
the same means extend the fertile area of the rebel 
tribes.' 

How far there may be truth in Sir Samuel Baker's 
conjecture as to this great famine I cannot presume to 
judge, but it seems evident that the distractions in Upper 
Egypt would be likely to throw much greater power into 
the hands of the rival potentates in Cush ; and the study 
which I have devoted to the great Karnak list of tribu- 
tary places and provinces in the south, of the date of 
Thothmes III., shows that in the victorious times which 
succeeded the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Soudan, and 
Abyssinia, and Somali land were the objects of great 
military attention on the part of the Pharaohs. But we 
must remember that other countries shared the drought. 




CHAPTER VII. 

JACOB AND HIS SONS. 

HEN the famine was so sore in the land of 
Canaan it was natural that Jacob should send 
his sons down into Egypt to buy corn. Many facile but 
superficial objections have been urged in detail against the 
likelihood of the narrative. Some of them have been so well 
anticipated by Dr. Thomson that I must quote a little by 
way of example^ : 'When the crops of this country fail 
through drought or other causes, [he is speaking of South 
Palestine] the people still go down to Egypt to buy corn, 
as they did in the time of the patriarchs. It has also 
frequently occurred to me, when passing a large company 
of donkeys on their way to buy food, that we are not to 
suppose that only the eleven donkeys on which the 
brethren of Joseph rode composed the whole caravan. 
One man often leads or drives half a dozen ; and besides, 
I apprehend that Jacob's sons had many servants with 
them. Eleven sacks of grain, such as donkeys would 
carry, would not sustain a household like his for a week. 

^ The Land and the Book, p. 595. 



JACOB AND HIS SONS. 6l 

It IS no objection to this supposition that these servants 
are not mentioned. There was no occasion to allude to 
them, and such a reference would have disturbed the 
perfect unity and touching simplicity of that most 
beautiful narrative ; and it is in accordance with the 
general practice of Moses, in sketching the lives of the 
patriarchs, not to confuse the story by introducing non- 
historic characters. Thus, had it not been for the 
capture of Lot by Chedorlaomer, we should not have 
known that Abraham had three hundred and eighteen 
full-grown men in his household ; and so, also, had it not 
been necessary for Jacob to send company after company 
to guide his large presents to meet Esau, we might have 
been left to suppose that he and his sons alone conducted 
his flocks in his flight from Mesopotamia. But it is 
certain that he had a large retinue of servants ; and so, 
doubtless, each of his sons had servants, and it is in- 
credible that they should have gone down to Egypt 
without them. On the contrary, there is every reason to 
believe that there was a large caravan. The fact, also, 
that the sons themselves took part in the work, and that 
each had his sack under him, is in exact correspondence 
with the customs of tent-dwelling shepherds at this day. 
The highest sheikhs dress and fare precisely as their 
followers do, and bear their full share in the operations of 
the company, whatever they may be.' 

We must always remember that the corn was carried 
in quite a different thing (Heb. k'li, Gen. xlii. 25) from 
that {saq) sack which contained the ' provender,' and in 
which each man's money, and the silver cup, were secretly 
put. The latter receptacle is also called by a third name, 
viz. amtakhath (Gen. xlii. 27, 28, &c.), a word never 



62 JACOB AND HIS SONS. 

again occurring in Scripture. Yet learned professors 
put into the hands of young people such objections as 
the following : ' The whole world suffers from the famine, 
and is obliged to go to Egypt for corn. This is neces- 
sarily involved in the story, for why else should Jacob's 
sons have chosen Egypt for their second as well as their 
first purchase of corn ? Is such a state of things credible 
in real life ? Again, Jacob sends ten of his sons, each 
with his own ass, to buy corn. One cannot help asking 
why he did not send one son at the head of a caravan ? 
What little provision was laid in in this way, however, 
cannot have gone far towards supporting the whole 
family, especially if, as we are told, part of it had to be 
used as fodder for the beasts by the way. And yet the 
story tells us distinctly that each of Jacob's sons took his 
own sack with him upon his own ass ; else, how could it 
be said that the cup was hidden and afterwards found in 
Benjamin's special sack ? ' And so on in the same vein. 
Joseph accuses his brethren of coming as spies. Now 
it is interesting to find similar suspicious words in the 
mouth of Sekenen-Ra when Apepi's ambassador comes 
to him with his train : ' Who sent thee here to this city of 
the south ? How hast thou come to spy out ? ' {Papyrus 
Sallier, I., so Brugsch translates). And the feeling of sus- 
picion is expressed naturally enough. ' By the life of 
the Pharaoh,' was a well-known Egyptian oath. It is 
curious that ankh means *to swear,' ^ oath,' as well as 
' life.' The accused takes an oath * by the king's life ' 
not to speak falsely. A man swears ' by the name of 
the Pharaoh.' A workman in a necropolis had sworn by 
the name of the Pharaoh, and was reported by an officer 
to the prefect of the town. It was beyond the com- 



JACOB AND HIS SONS. 63 

petence of the subordinate, he said, to punish the work- 
man for this offence. It would seem that great lords 
might swear by the Pharaoh without rebuke : 

*That in the captain's but a choleric word 
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.' 

Certainly solemn and judicial use of oaths was com- 
mended, but perjury and careless or wanton swearing 
were prohibited, and included among sins in the * Ritual ' 
of the Egyptians. 

The employment of an interpreter at court was not 
only natural and necessary, but we find it expressly 
brought before us in Egyptian scenes ; as, for instance, in 
that of the thirty-seven Asiatic foreigners introduced to 
the Egyptian governor, to which we have before referred. 
Here we seethe interpreter, ' Khiti the scribe.' It is very 
curious to find in the highly-important cuneiform tablets 
lately discovered at Tel-al-Amarna, north of Thebes, and 
dated between the time of Joseph and the Exodus, that 
an interpreter is sent from Mesopotamia into Egypt, and 
called Targumanu, a dragoman. 

There is a small detail in the narrative of the inter- 
course between Joseph and his brethren which is at first 
sight almost amusing. Joseph inquires : ' Is your father 
well, the old man of whom ye spake ? Is he yet alive ? ' 
And they answered : ' Thy servant, our father, is in good 
health ; he is yet alive.' 

The inverted order, ' Is it peace to him ? Is he alive ? ' 
is very unusual ; but it seems also to be quite Egyptian. 
Chabas gives us some most interesting extracts from 
letters written in the time of Merenptah (probably the 
time of Moses), by a lady in an Egyptian outpost in 
Syria to friends at home in the Delta. In these familiar 



64 JACOB AND HIS SONS. 

communications the very phrase in question occurs more 
than once. She writes: 'I am very well off; I am 
alive ; ' and again, about a friend : ' His majesty's aide- 
de-camp Setemua is in good plight ; he lives ; don't 
trouble yourself about him ; he is quartered with us at 
Ta-makhirpe ' — the garrison in question. 

It is true that the Egyptians thought so much, and 
with so little fear, of death and things beyond, that to 
them the question, * Is it peace to such an one ? ' might 
not seem to render superfluous the further inquiry, ' Is he 
alive?' Anyhow, this coincidence is to me very pleasing^. 

On the second journey of Joseph's brethren they took 
with them, by their father's command, among their 
presents, those very balms and aromatics which the 
Midianite merchants were conveying into Egypt when 
his brethren added Joseph to the merchandise of their 
caravan. We have before explained what these spices 
were. 

The cup of Joseph's divination is worthy of note. The 
Hebrew word V'nJ is used only in this passage, in 
Exodus XXV, xxxvii, of the ' bowls,' (Revised Version, 
' cups ') of the golden candlestick ; and in Jeremiah 
xxxVj of ' pots of wine ' in the priests' chambers. I think 
the word kad2i, ox gabu^ in Egyptian ' blossom,' is equiva- 
lent to this. Compare ' kabu of wine ^.' 

The beautifully-formed vessels of silver, as well as of 
gold, brought as tribute by the Semitic Ruten folk 
during the reigns of the XVIIIth Egyptian dynasty, 
may well illustrate the probable character of Joseph's 
cup of silver. In the museum of the Louvre, among the 

^ Chabas, Melanges^ 3™® serie, t. ii. p. 152 ; also Etudes, &"€., p. 216. 
2 Pap. Harris, Records of the Past, vol. vi. p. 41. 



JACOB AND HIS SONS. 65 

very interesting relics of the great officer of Thothmes 
III., Tahutia, who figures in the marvellous adventure of 
the taking of Joppa^, are two beautiful shallow cups, one 
of gold, the other of silver, like that of Joseph, of which 
' the bottom is occupied by a flower with straight petals, 
around which swim five fishes in a sort of garland of 
lotus-blossoms'^/ 

^As to the fact of divining by cups in Ancient Egypt 
there can be no doubt. It is mentioned by lamblichus 
in his book on Egyptian mysteries (p. iii, sect. 14) ; and 
that the superstition descended to comparatively modern 
times appears from a circumstance mentioned in Norden's 
Travels (published in 1756). When he and his party 
were at Derri, on the confines between Egypt and 
Nubia, and in circumstances of great danger, they sent a 
threatening message to a malicious and powerful Arab. 
He replied, '-' I know what sort of people you are. I have 
consulted my cup^ and have found by it that you are the 
people of whom one of our prophets has said, that 
Franks should come in disguise^ and spy out the land ; 
that they would afterwards bring a great number of their 
countrymen, conquer the land, and exterminate all,'' &c.^ ' 

Vessels of silver are of very rare occurrence in Egypt, 
but it was a metal exceedingly valued and used by the 
Hittites. 

The various turns and subtleties of this unequalled 
narrative have been carefully followed out and explained 

^ Maspero, Com7nent Thoutii prit lavilU de Joppe, 

^ Pierret, Salle Historique, ^c. p. 87. Ebers mentions the golden and 
silver diadem of an Antef of the Xlth dynasty in the Museum at Leyden, 
and remarks that silver was more costly than gold in Ancient Egypt {Aegyp- 
ten und die Biicher Moseys y p. 272}. 

^ See Fairbaim's hnperial Bible- Dictionary (1886), y, art. * Divination,* 

E 



66 JACOB AND HIS SONS. 

by commentators. The mature experience of human 
nature which Joseph had gained enabled him like a 
sagacious physician to turn to good and kind account 
his special knowledge of the 'constitutions/ tempera- 
ments, and characters of his different brethren, and to 
lead them by singular expedients to ripen the good and 
cast off the evil qualities that marked them ^. 

The way in which the nobler part of Judah's character 
was brought into growth and strength is a very fine 
part of the family story. Doubtless, too, the cruel and 
wrathful Simeon had time for reflection and self-discipline 
in the prison. And all the pitiful love of the elder 



^ In the Hulsean Lectures of the Rev. C. Benson on Scripture Difflctil- 
iies (1822) are some excellent remarks on Joseph's conduct to his brethren. 
On the words * he spake roughly/ &c., he comments thus : * His last inter- 
view with them was at the pit ; his last request to them for his life : and it 
had failed. Reuben's prayers, and not his own, had saved him alive. . . . He 
must have been either more or less than a man, then, had he not retained 
the remains of a just and indignant remembrance of what he had experienced 
at their hands * (p. 364). The author points out his * desire to ascertain 
the present situation of his father and his family, especially of Benjamin, . . . 
who, as well as himself, was subject to their hatred.' 

* The charge of being "spies" overthrew their caution. Joseph was 
informed of two most interesting facts, — his father was alive, and Benjamin. 
Yet there was ambiguity ; and Joseph was not satisfied, remembering their 
falsehood, especially with regard to Benjamin, — why had he not come? So 
to bring Benjamin, if alive, he took Simeon. On Benjamin alone his mind 
is fixed, he omits his father, we suppose he may scarcely have believed his 
father was alive, — they had only said " their youngest brother was that day 
with their father " — but where ? In Canaan, or in the grave ? When 
Simeon was taken, they said one to another, *' We are verily guilty," &c. — 
the first words of sorrow for him ! The beginning of their penitence was 
the beginning of his tenderness, and he wept. Now he determined to give 
them the corn.' 

I have given a sketch of part of the lecturer's interesting exposition, as a 
specimen of his treatment of the history. The student will do well to refer 
to the book and pursue the inquiry under such guidance. 



JACOB AND HIS SONS. 67 

brethren was drawn out towards Benjamin, while their 
jealousies and evil surmisings died away. So also the 
venerable patriarch, himself so refined in the furnace 
of trial, was gradually brought into due honour and 
authority in the course of all these elaborate vicissitudes, 
which the good providence of God and the persistent 
sagacity of Joseph were working out from stage to stage 
of this marvellous course of human training. 

It is not my purpose to add one more exposition to 
those already available for instruction in these weighty 
matters, but rather to direct attention to the less fre- 
quented subjects in which we may learn from ancient 
sources, lately brought to light, both to understand and 
rightly to estimate these sacred records of ' the Scriptures 
of truth/ 

We must now say something of the concentration of 
power in the hands of the Pharaoh which was brought 
about by Joseph ; and here we cannot do better than 
translate from the very valuable work of M. FAbbe 
Vigouroux ^ : * What we know of property at a later 
period confirms the narrative of Genesis. The soil of 
Egypt, according to Diodorus Siculus, was divided in 
three parts, the first belonging to the priests, the second 
to the king, the third to the soldiers. The exemption of 
taxation in favour of the priests is mentioned in Genesis. 
There is no question of the soldiers, but their privilege 
may have been introduced later.' ' Herodotus tells us 
that they had the right to hold twelve arurae of land 
exempt, from imposts^ doubtless in lieu of pay. The 
mass of the population could not then become possessed 
of landed property.' ' In the sculptures,' says Wilkinson, 

^ La Bible et les Decouvertes Modernes, 4™® ed., p. 190 et seqq. 

E 2 



68 JACOB AND HIS SONS. 

'we never see any except the kings, the priests, and the 
soldiers, as landowners/ 

' Egyptology confirms indirectly the fact of the trans- 
ference of property in the soil of Egypt to the Pharaohs, 
although we know not by whom it was made. It estab- 
lishes, in fact, that under the ancient and the middle 
empire there existed a sort of feudal system, much like 
ours of the Middle Ages, often turbulent, and on many 
occasions little disposed to recognize the authority of 
the Pharaoh. The nomes were hereditary principalities 
committed to the hands of some great families, and 
allowed to pass from one to another by marriage or 
inheritance, on condition that the new possessor should 
obtain confirmation of his acquisition from the reigning 
sovereign^.' ' Under the new empire after the Hyksos, 
we no more meet any trace of this feudal organization. 
Joseph must have given it the last blow, by transferring 
to the king the property of all the country, the priestly 
domains alone excepted. Rameses III., in the great 
Harris Papyrus, gives himself out as proprietor of the 
soil of Egypt.' 

With regard to the organization and endowment of 
the military body by Rameses II., M. Eugene Revillout 
has pointed out that the testimony of Diodorus is con- 
firmed in an interesting manner by the celebrated poem 
of Pentaour on the great exploit of the Pharaoh at 
Kadesh on the Orontes, in the passage where Rameses 
reproaches his soldiers for cowardice, and recounts the 
benefits that he had conferred upon their order ^, 

^ Ledrain, Un Grand Seigneur Feodal, 6^^., ContemporaiUi i^® Avril 
1876. 
^ Revue Egyptologiquey 1884, p. loi. 



JACOB AND HIS SONS. 69 

The Ahh6 Vigouroux has correctly observed, ^that 
the sacred writer does not say that the Pharaoh had the 
real and absolute property in the lands of the Egyptians; 
he leaves them to their old proprietors, exacting only 
that they should pay as a tax to him the fifth part of 
the income. This measure then amounts simply to the 
raising of a tribute.' 

It is well worth while to study the details given by 
this learned writer on the subject of land tenure from 
Michaud ; and the vindication of the conduct of Joseph 
by the celebrated German scholar Ewald. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

JACOB'S MIGRATION. 

Tp QUITE agree with what M. Naville has observed in a 
(a valuable article in the Revue Chretienne ior 1880^; 
'Throughout the whole episode of the life of Joseph an 
attentive perusal of the Biblical narrative reveals a sort of 
separation between the king and his subjects, between the 
race of the conquerors, favourable to the foreign emi- 
grants, and the home-born population. This separation 
was not, however, complete ; we do not forget that the last 
Hyksos kings had complied almost completely with the 
customs of Egypt, always preserving their own national 
god.' 

These remarks apply very well to the details of those 
delightful scenes in which domestic and familiar life is 
so woven into the rich tapestry of courtly and royal 
pomp and circumstance, in the bringing of the patriarch 
Jacob, and his reception, and afterwards of his splendid 
obsequies. 

In the Book of Genesis (xlvi. 28, 29) we are told that 

^ Les Israelites en Egypte, 



JACOB'S MIGRATION. 7I 

Jacob ' sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to show the 
way before him unto Goshen ; and they came into the 
land of Goshen. And Joseph made ready his chariot, 
and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen ; and 
he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and 
wept on his neck a good while.' 

Those who have seen the admirable terra-cotta reliefs 
of Tinworth can never read this story without remember- 
ing those life-like groups in which he has revived, with 
such high genius, the scene of this great historic meeting. 

The Septuagint version, written in Egypt, tells us that 
Judah went to meet Joseph at Heroonpolis, in the land 
of Ramesses, and that Joseph met Israel, his father, 
there. The Coptic version gives the name of the place 
as Pithom ; and it turns out that all are right, for at 
Pi-tum M. Naville found Roman inscriptions bearing the 
name ERO, ERO CASTRA, the (Roman) camp Ero, 
and HPOT in Greek. The Greek HPOT well represents 
the Egyptian Am, plural of Ar, 'magazine' or * store- 
house ; ' and this, as M. Naville believes, is the true deri- 
vation of the name, confirmed by the use of the word in 
inscriptions on the spot \ 

Now it is in this direction that a very ancient road 
across the desert from the south of Palestine leads, by 
which the patriarchs probably entered Palestine from 
Hebron and Beer-sheba. This was the belief of the late 
accomplished and experienced traveller, the Rev. F. W. 
Holland, who discovered this ancient way, which leads 
into Ismailieh from the East. Colonel Sir C. W. Wilson, 
R.E., has given a map of this route^ with notes, in the 

^ T/ie Store-city of Pithom y p. 6. 



72 JACOB S MIGRATION. 

Palestine Exploration Fund's Quarterly Stateme^it for 
1884. 

The advice which Joseph gave to his brethren, on 
which he and they acted so successfully, agrees very well 
with the conditions of the times of the Hyksos, for it is 
clear that the shepherds were no abomination to the 
Pharaoh, although the Egyptians held them so. The 
* best of the land' which was assigned to them in Goshen 
must have meant the best for herdsmen ; and they were 
promoted to the office of stewards of the cattle of the 
Pharaoh in that part of the country which would bring 
them least in contact with the native Egyptians. Those 
who wish to study the interesting questions respecting 
the land of Goshen will turn to Dr. Ebers' elaborate 
work, Durch Gosen zum Sinai^ 2nd ed., 1881, and the 
geographical matter given by Dr. Diimichen^, and will 
find the information well digested by the Abbe Vigou- 
roux. But M. Naville has carefully examined the data 
in the light of his own explorations in his memoir on Saft 
el'Henneh and the Land of Goshen^ published by Triibner 
in 1887 for the Committee of the Egypt Exploration 
Fund. It has been a favourite and plausible notion that 
the name of Goshen was preserved, and the site of its 
capital indicated, by the Fakus of these days, the Pha- 
cusa of Ptolemy, the first syllable being the Egyptian 
article Pa. But M. Naville has given his reasons for 
concluding that the village of Saft el-Henneh is the 
ancient capital of Goshen, Pa-Sopt, named after the 
tutelary god of the Nome of Arabia, of which this 
place was the sacred capital. 

* Geschichte des Aliens Aegyptens, in Oncken's series. 



JACOB'S MIGRATION. 73 

The village stands on the site of a large ancient city, 
once occupied by the Romans, and enclosed by massive 
walls of crude brick. There is still a great market held 
on the mound on Wednesdays ^. M. Naville has closely 
studied the matter, and considers that the Goshen of the 
time of Joseph may be roughly reckoned as having its 
northern boundary from about the present . railway 
junction of Zagazig, very near the ancient Bubastis 
(Pi-beseth of Scripture), nearly to Tel-el-Kebir, and that 
it extended southwards somewhat farther than Belbeis. 
He considers the expression 'land of Rameses' as cover- 
ing a larger extent than Goshen. It included the city of 
Heroopolis, discovered by M. Naville at Tel-el-Mas- 
khuta, where the station is, on the railway to Ismailia, 
which the French engineers called Ramses, following the 
mistaken identification with that store-city, whereas it 
was really Pithom. 

'The traveller who leaves the station of Zagazig and 
journeys towards Tel-el-Kebir crosses, in all its width, 
what was the old land of Goshen. This part of the 
country is still particularly fruitful ; it abounds in fine 
villages, the sheikhs, and even the common inhabitants, 
of which are generally very well off ^.' 

In the old Pharaonic times the territory of the town of 

^ Saft is regarded by M. Naville as the true site of Phacusa, Pa-kes, as the 
place is twice called in the inscription on a shrine erected there by Necta- 
nebo II. (Nekhtnebef), and discovered by M. Naville, who is inclined to think 
that this is also the store-city Rameses, built by the enthralled Israelites for 
their great oppressor. It appears that Brugsch has given his adherence to the 
same identification at the Congress of Orientalists at Stockholm {Academy, 
1889, p. 190). 

Mr. Flinders Petrie, on geographical grounds, agrees in assigning the 
position of the Phacusa of Ptolemy to Saft el-Henneh {Naukratis, p. 91). 

2 Naville, Theological Monthly, 1889, p. 149. 



74 JACOBS MIGRATION. 

Bubastis was called sekhet fititer, * the divine meadow/ 
and personified in the temple of Edfou under the figure 
of a woman with an inscription which reads : * The 
meadow of the East, very beautiful, which bears the 
flowers of the meadow sekhet fiuter ^.' 

Among the scraps of correspondence contained in the 
celebrated Anastasi papyri, is one in which an officer 
announces to Mineptah (or Merenptah), the probable 
Pharaoh of Exodus, that ' we have let the tribes of the 
Shasu (nomad Asiatics) of the country of Aduma, 
pass the fortress Khetam of the King Mineptah- Hotep- 
himat . . . which is in the country of Thuku, beside the 
meres of the town Patum of the King Mineptah-Hotep- 
himat, which is in the country of Thuku, to feed them 
and to feed their cattle in the domain of the Pharaoh, 
who is the good sun of all the world.' This refers to 
an exactly similar admission of Eastern foreigners into 
the land of Goshen through the route of Pithom in 
the much later days when the children of Jacob in 
their sore bondage had built the store-cities for the com- 
missariat supplies of the Egyptian armies on their depar- 
ture for Syria. But M. Naville brings down his notices 
to the Middle Ages to establish the identity of the land 
of Goshen. 

Besides the Egyptian authorities, he gives information 
derived from Arabic authors of note, and an extract from 
the very curious narrative of a lady's pilgrimage in the 
fourth century, lately found at Arezzo by Signor Gamur- 
rini. 

It is very clear that, whatever may have been the exact 

^ Bnigsch, Diet. Geog, p. 13. 



JACOB S MIGRATION. 75 

extent of the 'land of Goshen ' at various times, we know 
what was the region occupied by the brethren of Joseph. 
And it is the more interesting to inquire into the antiquities 
of this district since M. Naville's last researches at Bu- 
bastis (Tel Basta) have for the first time revealed the fact 
that this was a chief residence of the later Hyksos kings, 
at any rate, and, as it appears, we have now in the British 
Museum the fine sculpture-portrait of an Apepi, who, in 
the opinion of the learned Egyptologist, is none other 
than the Pharaoh of Joseph. At all events, the adjoin- 
ing portal-jambs bear the inscription of that latter 
Apepi. 

We may now think it likely that Joseph's chariot 
passed from Bubastis right through the land of Goshen 
to meet his father at the eastern post of that great high- 
way to the desert and the land of Canaan, which has 
seen the march of so many armies since the time of 
the great Pharaohs of the Xllth dynasty down to the 
entrance of our own forces, guided by the stars to Tel- 
el-Kebir. 

After meeting his father, Joseph proceeds to the court, 
to announce in person to the Pharaoh the arrival of his 
family and their retinue and possessions out of the land 
of Canaan: 'And, behold, they are in the land of Goshen,' 
he said ; and he presented five of his brethren to the 
Pharaoh : ' And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is 
your occupation.^ And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy 
servants are shepherds, both we and our fathers. And 
they said unto Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are we 
come ; for there is no pasture for thy servants' flocks ; 
for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan ; now, there- 
fore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of 



76 Jacob's migration. 

Goshen.' And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying : 
* Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee ; the 
land of Egypt is before thee ; in the best of the land make 
thy father and thy brethren to dwell ; in the land of 
Goshen let them dwell ; and if thou knowest any men of 
activity among them, then make them rulers over my 
cattle.' 

That to the Egyptians every shepherd was an abomi- 
nation was a consideration that would lead to the family of 
Joseph remaining where they already were, in Goshen, 
' the best of the land.' If by ^ Egyptians' are meant the 
native race of MizraTm, as distinct from the Hyksos 
and mixed people of the Delta (as Potiphar was noted 
' an Egyptian '), then the reasoning is plain, and would 
prevent Joseph's kinsfolk from being sent up the country. 
Thus also the way of retreat to their own land would 
be open to them in case of need ; and they would be 
best able to gain intelligence from those parts, and, of 
course, to maintain constant intercourse with Joseph 
himself. 

The Pharaoh kindly enters into the plan. They were 
no abomination to him, as his whole demeanour towards 
them plainly testified ; and this helps to show that he 
was of Asiatic race. 

Now the care of the royal cattle of Egypt was no slight 
matter, for we know from the monuments that even in 
the far earlier times when the Pyramids were built, the 
possessions of high nobles included herds and flocks of great 
number and beauty. They were most carefully treated, 
fed and housed, nursed and doctored, and everything 
relating to them was methodically taken down in writing 
and duly reported. The royal herds at the time of Joseph 



JACOB'S MIGRATION. 77 

too were largely increased, as the Scripture narrative tells 
us, by the acquisition of the cattle which were brought in 
exchange for grain ; therefore a great and goodly prospect 
of business and responsibility lay open before the most 
capable of Joseph's brethren. After this prosperous 
commencement, Joseph next presents his aged father 
himself. * And Joseph brought in Jacob, his father, and 
set him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 
And Pharaoh said unto Jacob : How many are the days 
of the years of thy life ? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh : 
The days of the years of my sojournings are a hundred 
and thirty years ; few and evil have been the days of 
the years of my life, and they have not attained 
unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in 
the days of their sojournings. And Jacob blessed 
Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.' 
It is worth while to give, in view of the age of Jacob, 
some veritable instances of extreme longevity, both 
ancient and modern. 

In July, 1882, Lord Talbot de Malahide read a paper 
on the longevity of the Romans in North Africa, in which 
he ' gave several instances of epitaphs and inscriptions on 
tombs of persons whose age had exceeded a hundred years, 
in some cases an age of 120, 130, and even 140 years 
had been attained.' 

In the Lancet of September, 1883, is a circumstantial 
account of an old woman in a village called Auberives- 
en-Royans, between Valence and Grenoble, who had 
reached the age of 123 years, 'with no infirmity except 
slight deafness, being in full possession of her mental 
faculties.' This is confirmed in the Morning Post of 
October 6, 1883, by a letter from the maire of the 



78 JACOB'S MIGRATION. 

place, who says : ' It is quite true our centenarian is 123 
years of age, and the hundredth anniversary of her 
marriage was the 13th of last January. She still re- 
members starting with her husband for the war under 
the first empire. She possesses the use of all her 
faculties except hearing, and is even able to do the little 
cooking she requires, and to keep her little room very 
clean.' 

Another instance of extreme age is given in the 
Morning Post of February 4, 1888, in a Renter's 
telegram dated February 3 : ' The Pope to-day re- 
ceived the Scholars and Professors of the College of 
the Propaganda. Monseigneur Adaux, from California, 
presented to his holiness a photograph of Gabriel, the 
Indian Catholic, who is now aged 140 years, and re- 
quested a special benediction for him.* 

It is a curious thing that Berosus, the Chaldaean 
historian, gives 116 years as the ideal length of life. We 
shall see hereafter that the Egyptians traditionally held a 
shorter age as their desired lifetime. 

What would we give for a faithful portraiture of 
Abraham, Jacob, or Joseph ? The general type of their 
features we may indeed fairly project before our imagina- 
tion, by the help of those most interesting mural paint- 
ings in Egyptian tombs, which our artists have given 
to us in the great works of Champollion, Rosellini, 
and Lepsius. 

It is indeed a wonderful thing that the aspect of the 
great oppressor at whose court Moses was brought up is 
perfectly familiar to us in its growth from boyhood to 
maturity through innumerable statues and portraits ; and 
lastly, the very 'statue of flesh,' his own embalmed body. 



JACOB'S MIGRATION. 79 

has been brought from the darkness of the tomb, to show 
us the actual face on which the great Hebrew so often 
gazed. 

We have not, indeed, the same opportunity of verifying 
the counterfeit presentments of Merenptah, but we have 
most artistic hkenesses of that monarch. 

And if M. Naville is right, the most interesting, and 
perhaps the most beautifully executed Egyptian royal 
head in the British Museum, gives us the authentic 
features of Joseph's Pharaoh. 

It wears the familiar folded head-dress of the Egyptian 
monarchs, and the royal basilisk on the forehead. The 
face is most interesting, for it is a refined and dig- 
nified version of the type presented by the sphinxes of 
San. 

The countenance is of squarish frame, with high 
cheek-bones, the cheeks themselves rather sunk, the 
mouth and lower jaw prominent, but well-formed, and 
the chin finely rounded up to the slightly projecting 
low^er lip, with a very firm, but not surly, look. The 
nose, rather injured, is well-proportioned and hand- 
somely formed ; the eyes, well apart, are denoted by 
cavities intended for the wonderful work in some different 
material which only Egyptian artists would employ; 
but in the absence of their orbits there is a proud and 
calm expression of intellect. 

We see in this fine face something of Egyptian 
serenity, but without the attractive cheer of that well- 
favoured nation. 

The twin statues unearthed by M. Naville at Bu- 
bastis may have stood in the temple at the time of 
which we are speaking, and it does not seem unlikely 



8o JACOB'S MIGRATION. 

that the introduction of Jacob and his sons to the 
Pharaoh may have taken place in that important 
city, whose ruins are only second in dignity to those of 
Zoan. 

We have already spoken of the administration of 
public affairs by Joseph. It is evident that his purpose 
was the centralisation of power ; and we must remember 
that, far from being the rigid and unchanging system 
which is popularly supposed, the government of Egypt 
had passed through many violent changes, dislocations, 
and vicissitudes, some of which are known to us, and 
many more may be inferred as probable. At the time 
there were impending civil wars, which eventually issued 
in the total overthrow of the foreign domination. There 
were also strong hereditary princes to be kept under 
discipline and in unity, and when the mass of the people 
became lieges of the Pharaoh, they were simply doing 
homage to him as their lord, and gaining the same sort 
of advantages that our forefathers obtained by the wise 
concentration of power under King Alfred, and our 
fellow-subjects in India now enjoy by the overthrow 
of the sanguinary despots of different and rival races, 
whose exactions and tyrannies hindered all true de- 
velopments or progress. 

How great and surprising was the expansion of 
Egyptian power under the vigorous native Pharaohs 
of the great XVIIIth dynasty we are only now learning 
from the cuneiform records of Tel-el-Amarna. 

The Israelites took good root in Goshen, ^ and they 
gat them possessions therein, and were fruitful, and 
multiplied exceedingly.' And evidently the stronger 
did they grow, so much the stronger grew the Pharaoh 



JACOB'S MIGRATION. 8l 

in devoted lieges, * men of activity/ and fit in every way 
for his service \ 

^ In the Zeitschrift fur Aeg, Spr. 1889, p. 125, Dr. E. von Bergmann 
describes an injured block of relief-sculpture in the Imperial Museum at 
Berlin, of the time of Har-em-heb, the last king of the great XVIIIth 
djmasty. The tableau represents a company of Egyptians bending forward 
submissively with hands on knees. A single man follows them in the same 
attitude. Similar groups occur at Tel-el-Amarna. The inscription, of 
which the beginning is much marred, seems to relate to a troop of Semitic 
immigrants who are come to honour * the good god, the great and mighty, 
Har-em-heb.' They are called Menti-u (the name applied to nomads, and 
to the Hyksos), and it appears that their enemies had destroyed and wasted 
their town by fire ; * their lands hunger ; they live as the wild beasts of the 
deserts.' Some of the barbarians who knew not how to live were come (it 
apparently says) to the Pharaoh, * as was the usage of the father of their 
fathers from the beginning ; ' and they are received and committed to the 
care of officers, that they may keep within the boundaries assigned to them 
(cf. Pr. S. B. Arch. 1889, p. 425). This very interesting record seems very 
similar to the much later narrative of the admission of the Shasu in the time 
of Mer-en-ptah to pasture their herds within the defensive eastern frontier of 
the Delta, and both remarkably illustrate the Scripture narrative. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DYING ISRAEL. 

"pT was seventeen years after the entrance of Joseph's 
(a family into Egypt that ' the time drew near that 
Israel must die : ' and he called his son Joseph, and 
exacted from him an oath, after the manner of his 
people, not to bury him in Egypt, but, when he should 
sleep with his fathers, to carry him out of Egypt and 
bury him in their burying-place. 'And he [Joseph] 
said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, Swear 
unto me : and he sware unto him.' 

Then we come to a highly interesting and signifi- 
cant point in the narrative. For we are told that 
when Joseph sware, Israel bowed himself riDDH C^^«vi5y. 
Now, if we take the Epistle to the Hebrews for our 
guide, we must render these words cttI to aKpov irjs pd(3bov 
avTov, upon (or towards) the top of his staff. But our 
Authorised Version and Revised Version render, ' upon 
the bed's head.' The Epistle to the Hebrews follows 
the Septuagint. The variation arises from the fact that 
the same word in Hebrew means either bed or staff, 



THE DYING ISRAEL. 83 

according to the vowel sounds with which it is pro- 
nounced. As we have the passage written and printed 
now, it stands nrirsn, the bed ; not nmn staff. 

It will be observed that we are not informed whose 
staff is in question. It has often been referred to 
Joseph's, and not to Jacob's own staff. 

This explanation has been repudiated with good 
reason, if it were supposed that the bowing down implied 
a religious act of worship to the head of Joseph's staff. 
Nevertheless, it is worth while to enquire whether there 
w^as not a solemn interchange of mutual reverence. 
The son Joseph obeys his father's behest by swearing 
to fulfil his injunction and bury him in the sepulchre 
of Abraham at Hebron. But in making that request 
Jacob had observed a ceremonial reverence as towards 
a lord; 'If now I have found grace in thy sight,' — 
being evidently mindful of the high place of authority 
held by Joseph, which, indeed, was ultimately manifested 
by the royal pomp of the obsequies accorded to Jacob. 

Whose then was the staff in question, to the head 
of which Jacob bowed himself down ? If Joseph's, it 
was the symbol of the high authority of the deputy 
of the Pharaoh, the lord over all the land of Egypt, 
at whose mouth every one should kiss, as we have before 
explained : and Jacob might well remember his own 
old incredulous question ; — * Should he indeed come to 
bow down himself to Joseph?' 

It would be an act of homage rendered in express 
fulfilment of the Divine prognostic given in the dream 
of Joseph's boyhood. 

This explanation receives a new and striking light 
from the researches of the late eminent Egyptologist 

F 2 



84 THE DYING ISRAEL. 

Chabas ^. He explains the use of the head of the staff 
in making oath by touching that part of the symbol 
of authority in the hand of the ruler, in token of 
homage. This is also the decided opinion of Mr. 
Reginald Stuart Poole ^. 

The great French Orientalist, de Sacy, had explained 
the passage in Heb. xi. 21 in the same manner. In 
a note he writes : ' The sense is ; that by this act of 
outward reverence which Jacob rendered to the staff 
of Joseph, he honoured his power and the dignity that 
he possessed in Egypt, and that he adored in the spirit 
of faith the power of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, 
of which the staff of Joseph was the figure.' 

I believe Calvin inclined to the same opinion. We 
may notice as an illustration that Rameses II. touches 
the outstretched sceptre of Amen-Ra in offering to a 
triad of Egyptian gods. It is the act of homage so 
familiar in the history of Esther, when the Persian 
king holds out the golden sceptre. 

The patriarch had indeed blessed the Pharaoh who 
was worshipped by his own subjects as a veritable 
god — but here, where no profanation could be supposed, 
Jacob renders homage to the Pharaoh's vicegerent in 
the person of his own long-lost son. 

The staff of office wielded by Egyptian potentates 
may be seen in the British Museum, made of ebony 
or other wood, and its head of ivory, carved as a 
papyrus flower or otherwise. 

Dr. Ebers gives ^ a strange tradition of the Arabs with 

^ Sur V usage des bdtoits de main (Lyon, 1875, p. 10). Melanges egyptal^ 
serie iii. tome i, p. 80. 
^ Contemporary Review^ 1879, p. 753. 
* Durch Gosen zum Sinai j p. 579. 



THE DYING ISRAEL. 85 

regard to the staff wielded by a succession of patriarchs 
from Adam to Moses, and a Rabbinical story of the same 
complexion about the wonderful staff inherited by Jacob 
from Adam, and given by him to Joseph. 

It is an interesting thing that at Hebron, in the 
sepulchral chamber where it is said that Joseph was 
ultimately buried, a staff is hung up ^. 

It does not seem that Jacob had been especially 
ill when he exacted that solemn promise from his 
son ; but infirmity and blindness had warned him 
of his approaching departure. Next we find that 
one ' told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick : and 
he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and 
Ephraim. And one told Jacob, and said. Behold, thy 
son Joseph cometh unto thee : and Israel strengthened 
himself, and sat upon the bed. And Jacob said unto 
Joseph, God Almighty [El Shaddai) appeared unto me 
at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said 
unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply 
thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples ; 
and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an ever- 
lasting possession. And now thy two sons, which were 
born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto 
thee into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, 



^ Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, new ed. 1883, vol. i. p. 443. 

Those who may wish to examine more minutely the matter of the 
Egyptian ceremonial of the staff will find details as follows : Birch, Revue 
Archeologique, i'® serie, tome xvi, 1859, P- ^57; Maspero, Uite EnquHt 
Judiciaire, &^c,, Paris, 1871 ; Deveria, Le Pap. judiciaire de Turin^ &^c.; 
Pierret, Vocabulaire,^^. 369, 405, 701 ; Erman, Zeitschrift fUr Aegyptische 
Sprache, 1879, p. 83. But I believe the result above indicated is not 
really affected, and I could give reasons for this conclusion, if this were the 
right place to do so. 



86 THE DYING ISRAEL. 

even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine.' The two 
sons of Joseph and Asenath, born before Jacob's arrival, 
should rank as Jacob's own sons, equal to his eldest-born, 
Reuben and Simeon ; but any other children of Joseph 
should reckon as belonging to them, not as forming 
other tribes. 

Ephraim and Manasseh are already mentioned by 
Jacob in reverse order, — the younger first — thus showing 
the deliberation of his purpose to prefer the younger. 
Dr. Kalisch has treated this matter in a very interest- 
ing way^ 

'Joseph hastened to him from the royal residence, 
stimulated partly by filial love, and partly by the desire 
of conferring with him on a subject of the very highest 
moment for the future of his house. 

^ He had married an Egyptian wife, and had by her 
during his separation from his relatives, and in a foreign 
land, become the father of his two first-born sons, there- 
fore, not groundlessly apprehending that his children 
might be excluded from the hopes and the promised 
inheritance of the Hebrews, he brought Ephraim and 
Manasseh, then about 10 years old (comp. xli. 50), before 
Jacob, in order to obtain his pledge of their unqualified 
admission as members of his family (xlviii. i). But these 
thoughts had occupied Jacob not less seriously than 
Joseph. When he, therefore, was informed of his son's 
visit, he was determined finally to arrange the matter 
(ver. 2). In order to prove that he was invested with 
the lawful authority for unrestricted decision, he men- 
tioned the manifestation of God which . . . had 

* Commentary on the Old Testament, English ed. 1858. 



THE DYING ISRAEL. 87 

been granted to him at Bethel, in confirmation of a 
Divine vision before accorded to him at the same place, 
when on his flight from Canaan to Mesopotamia (xxxv. 
II, 12 ; comp. xxviii., 13-15). In virtue of the blessings 
which he then received, as the spiritual heir of Abraham 
and Isaac, he was enabled to bestow blessings on his own 
descendants ; and in virtue of the promise which was then 
made to him regarding the possession of Canaan, he was 
entitled to divide the land among his progeny, according 
to his own option (xlviii. 3, 4). He, therefore, adopted the 
two eldest sons of Joseph, securing to them in every 
respect equal rights with his own sons, and appointing 
them as the chiefs over their younger brothers (ver. 5, 6). 
Thus Joseph obtained from his father even more than 
he had intended to solicit' 

' Mine,' — so Ainsworth explains, — ' as my next 
children, and not my child's children. So these two are 
made heirs by adoption with Jacob's sons, and Joseph 
hath a double portion, the first birthright being taken 
from Reuben and given unto him (Gen. xlix. 3, 4 ; i 
Chron. v. i, 2), and of Joseph are reckoned two tribes, 
both in the Prophets and Evangelists ; (Num. i. 32, 34 ; 
Rev. vii. 6, 8).' 

Then the aged Jacob finds utterance for the great 
sorrow of all his ' few and evil ' days : ' And as for me, 
when I came from Padan, Rachel died by me in the land 
of Canaan in the way, when there was still some way 
to come unto Ephrath : and I buried her there in the 
way to Ephrath.' ' Rachel died by me,' or ' for me,' 
for, as Lange says : ' "hv would mean, literally, for him ; 
she died for him, since, while living she shared with him, 
and for him, the toils of his pilgrimage life, and through 



88 THE DYING ISRAEL. 

this, perhaps, brought on her deadly travail.' That this 
was so seems very likely, as we have before shown. 

' Then,' as Lange well says, ' the old dim-eyed 
patriarch interrupts himself. He now perceives for the 
first time that he is not alone with Joseph, and asks, 
" Who are these ? '' " And Joseph said unto his father : 
They are my sons, whom God hath given me here. 
And he said. Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and 
I will bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim 
for age, so that he could not see, and he brought them 
near unto him ; and he kissed them, and embraced 
them. And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought 
to see thy face ; and, lo, God hath let me see thy seed 
also. And Joseph brought them out from between his 
knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. 
And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand 
toward Israelis left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand 
toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near unto 
him. And Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it 
upon Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his 
left hand upon Manasseh's head, guiding his hands 
wittingly (or crossing his hands) ; for Manasseh was 
the firstborn." Let us remark that it next says : " And 
he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom 
my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God 
which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, the 
Angel which hath redeemed me from all evil. Bless 
the lads ; and let my name be named on them, and 
the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac ; and let 
them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." 
Here we will note that the Hebrew rendered " before 
whom '' reminds us of the name Penuel ; that the word 



THE DYING ISRAEL. 89 

''fed" imperfectly denotes the ruling, guiding, and protect- 
ing work of the shepherd, which is intended, as in 
Psalm xxiii. And that the last and the first clause of 
this sublime and beautiful invocation are shown in con- 
nexion in " the Angel of His presence " (v^a H^I'd) of 
Isaiah Ixiii. 9.' 

'It is worthy of notice,' says Lange, 'that, along 
with this threefold meaning of God (which would seem 
to sound like an anticipation of the Trinity ^, there 
is, at the same time, clearly presented the conception 
of God's presence, of His care as a Shepherd, and of 
His faithfulness as Redeemer, — all too in connexion 
with the laying on of hands.' 

We have, therefore, in this passage a point in which 
the revelation makes a significant advance : ' And when 
Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the 
head of Ephraim, it displeased him : and he held up his 
father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head on 
to Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father, 
Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn ; put thy 
right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and 
said, I know it, my son, I know it : he also shall become 
a people, and he also shall be great : howbeit his 
younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed 
shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed 
them that day, saying. In thee shall Israel bless, saying, 
God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh : and he 
set Ephraim before Manasseh.' 

'This blessing,' as Keil observes, 'begins to fulfil 
itself from the days of the Judges onwards ; as the 
tribe of Ephraim in power and compass so increased 

1 See Keil p. 2^1. 



90 THE DYING ISRAEL. 

that it became the head of the northern ten tribes, and 
its name became of like significance with that of Israel ; 
although in the time of Moses Manasseh still out- 
numbered Ephraim by izOjOOO ' (Numb. xxvi. 34, 37). 

* And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die : but 
God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the 
land of your fathers. Moreover I have given to thee 
one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of 
the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with 
my bow.' 

There is here a characteristic play upon the word 
rendered ' portion,' namely shekem ( ' shoulder,' or * moun- 
tain-slope/ R.V. marg.)^ referring doubtless to the 
beautiful and fertile place where Jacob had purchased 
a possession, which he seems to have afterwards 
recovered from the Khivvites (Hivites of our version), 
who are here called by the great inclusive name 
Amorites. 

The Septuagint version translates, 'I give thee Sikima' 
(2tK6)[xa), the local name. 

What was meant by Jacob in saying that he had 
taken this possession out of the hand of the Amorite 
with his sword and with his bow has been disputed. 
Some have thought he referred to the treacherous 
outrage of Simeon and Levi, which he so indignantly 
repudiates ; some to an unmentioned forcible recovery 
of the land that he had purchased from Khamor. 

But it is also viewed as a prophetic and future warrant 
for the possession of the district, as indeed came to 
pass. ' The perfect, '•ij^ng^, is used in a prophetic sense,' 
as Lange says ; and Jacob views himself as the future 
people Israel. 



THE DYING ISRAEL. 9I 

It is well worth while, however, to read the argu- 
ment of the late Bishop Wordsworth on the passage 
in Stephen's speech (Acts vii) relating to this matter. 
In verses 15, 16, it is said, 'So Jacob went down into 
Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, and were carried 
over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that 
Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of 
Emmor (the father) of Sychem.' Thus it is translated 
in the Authorized Version. 

It is objected that Jacob was buried in the Makpelah 
at Hebron. The Greek reads, kol ereAevrrjo-ez; avrbs /cat 
ol TTarepes ^jutwz; kol ix^TeriOrjaav els 2i;)(^/^3 i^cu iriOrjaav 
iv TO) fxvriiJiaTL (S (bvYjaaTO ^AjBpaafji rifJLrjs apyvpiov irapa tS>v 
vlcav 'Ejujuto)/) Tov 2fx€//. Bishop Wordsworth replies that 
it is not said that Jacob was taken to Sychem, but 
that the fathers (heads of the tribes) were, and quotes 
two passages in which Jerome says that the fathers 
were buried there. 

He also argues that, as Abraham built an altar there, 
he probably would have bought ground for that 
purpose, as Jacob afterwards did, and that it was this 
sacred possession that Jacob himself recovered by force 
from the Amorite and specially granted to Joseph. 
He urges moreover that 'E/x/zcbp tov 2i;x^V would properly 
mean (not the father, but) the son of Sychem, and 
that as there was a Khamor at Sychem five centuries 
later than Jacob's time (Judges ix. 28), the name was 
a hereditary title of the rulers of the place. 

The Sinaitic Codex rids us of this subordinate question 
of TOV 2i>x^'/^ by reading E/z/xcop h Sv^^Mj which is followed 
by our Revised Version : 'Jacob went down into Egypt; 
and he died, himself, and our fathers ; and they were 



9^ THE DYING ISRAEL. 

carried over unto Shechem, and laid in the tomb that 
Abraham bought for a price in silver of the sons of 
Hamor (Gr. Emmor) in Shechem/ 

In the Book of Joshua (xxiv. 32) it is said that Joseph 
was buried in Shekem, ' in the parcel of ground which 
Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of She- 
chem,' &c. It seems most probable that Khamor was a 
hereditary title used by the Amorites. 

The enigmatic expression of Jacob, ' one Shekem,' 
may possibly, in connexion with Bishop Wordsworth's 
remarks on Abraham's purchase and that of Jacob, 
suggest that there were twin Shekems, which would 
account for the plural form StKtjixa in the Septuagint. 



CHAPTER X. 

'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' 

|£J3J'^E have now to speak of a supposed trace of 
both Jacob and Joseph in an Egyptian 
record of the highest interest. 

In the celebrated list of 119 names of places in Pales- 
tine tributary to Thothmes III., at Karnak. the 102nd 
name is Cj^'^JJC] ^^ which in Hebrew letters would 
stand probably as bi^^^pV"^ (Jacob-el). It was de Rouge 
who first suggested the Hebrew transcription, and asked 
the question : ' Is it allowable to suppose that this name 
of locality preserves a memorial of one of the establish- 
ments of Jacob in Palestine .^' Others have since treated 
this question, and especially, with remarkable ability, M. 
Groff \ The parallel name /I| £] ^t] ^, b^^^' (Joseph- 
el), occurs as the 78th in the same list. We must now 
try to explain the inquiry, as it stands at present, as 
clearly as may be, and show its bearings on the life of 
Joseph. With regard to the last syllable in these two 
names, the hieroglyphic signs will very well represent the 
Hebrew bt^^ el^ 'god.' This is borne out by other ex- 

^ Revue Egyptologique^ 1885, pp. 95, &c., 146, &c., and 1886. 



94 ' JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL/ 

amples. Then in the first name the transliteration npj;^ 
Jacob, is exact, and Jacob-el would be the full form of 
the name, similar to Isra-el and Ishma-el ; and let us 
take as an example of both forms nna'' (Jephthakh), both 
a local name (Joshua xv. 43) and a well-known name of 
a hero, and 7^<"^na^ (Jephthakh-el), a valley (Joshua xix. 
14, %']\ which is itself paralleled by the modern Arabic 
local name of a ford, Makhadet Fatah Allah. * The 
expression Fatah-Allah, or more commonly in vulgar 
Arabic Yeftah-Allah, " may God open," is used when 
looking forward to some piece of luck^ as the first money 
taken by a tradesman, &c.^' The ford crosses the 
Jordan about one-third of the way between the Sea of 
Galilee and the Dead Sea ^. We have exactly the same 
form as Joseph-el in Joseph-Iah (Ezra viii. 10), iT'^DV. 

It may be objected that in the Egyptian hieroglyphs 
we have the equivalent of t^, and in the name of Joseph 
D. But this is probably only a dialectic variation, as in 
the celebrated case of shibboleth, which the Ephraimites 
softened into D, ^ ; as M. Grofif has well observed. 

The use of apocopated names is known in Egyptian 
and Assyrian as well as in Hebrew. Schrader gives, for 
example, the name Isammi' as an abridged form of 
Ishma-el ^. I refer the student to a valuable article on 
Egyptian proper names by M. Groff in \\\^ Revue Egypt- 
ologique^ 1887, p. 86, &c. I cannot agree with him, 
however, in thinking that the Jacob-el and Joseph-el of 
the Karnak List of Palestine are necessarily, or probably, 
tribal names as distinguished from local names. To 
' call their lands after their own names ' was such an 

^ PaL Survey i Name Lists, p. 202. ^ Great Map ^ sheet xii. Qm. 

^ Eng, Tr, vol. i. p. 135. 



* JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' 95 

established and ancient custom, that there is no difficulty 
in it. And in the case of the generality of these names 
of the tribute-lists, it is hard to imagine any doubt of 
their local character. This source of information has 
not yet been taken into account by Biblical scholars in 
any adequate way in its bearing on the narrative of the 
Old Testament. Here we have 119 names, of which all 
but a very few belong to Palestine, written by an 
Egyptian scribe in hieroglyphic about the year 1600 B.C., 
something more than a century after the death of Jacob, 
and almost in the noonday height of prosperity of the 
great XVIIIth dynasty. 

In a philological point of view, as the Vicomte Emma- 
nuel de Rouge writes : ' This list of peoples conquered 
by Thothmes III. in Syria presents an immense interest, 
for it belongs to one of the questions which has been 
most debated in Biblical studies, to wit, the origin of 
the sacred language. What is it in fact but Hebrew? 
If one believes the scholars of the last century, this will 
be nothing else than the language of the race of Abra- 
ham ; that, consequently, which the patriarch would 
have brought with him. Critics bid us notice that Jacob, 
on arriving, found all the names of towns and personages 
written in the language called Hebrew, and that from 
this fact we must conclude that this language was rather 
that of Canaan. Just at first we cried out, and yet the 
Bible itself contradicts the first theory, for when Jacob 
raised the cairn of witness he gave it two names, the one 
in Chaldee, the other in Hebrew [viz. * Laban called it 
Jegar-sahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed,' in Aramaic 
and Hebrew equally meaning ' the heap of witness ']. 
The monument of the conquered peoples at Karnak 



96 'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL/ 

affords an important light on this debate. We are at 
the moment when Jacob is in Palestine. It was, then, 
at that time the true ancient name that is given on the 
Egyptian monument ; now all the roots report them- 
selves as Semitic, and the forms are Hebraic. So then, 
at this epoch, the language of the country was that which 
we have since called Hebrew, mingled naturally, accord- 
ing to the localities, with Aramaean or Arabic dialects ^.' 

In fact, the transliteration into the Hebrew alphabet 
gives us very generally the names as we have them in 
the Old Testament ; and on the other hand the names 
still current in the mouths of the inhabitants, as recorded 
by the officers and scholars of the Palestine Survey, 
equally bear out the trustworthiness and antiquity of the 
Book of Joshua and other Biblical data of the early 
times of Israel. 

We cannot here, of course, enter on detailed inquiry 
of this kind, but quite enough may be adduced to 
illustrate what has been said ^. 

But it is right to mention that I have added, I believe 
with good reason, two groups of names to former identi- 
fications, the one in the mountain-country of Ephraim, 
the other surrounding the great sacred stronghold of 
Hebron. 

The name next preceding Joseph-el in the list is Har, 
which I would identify with the celebrated upland dis- 

* Milanges d' Archeologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne, vol. ii. p. 99. 

2 The lists in ^;k:^^;/j^,whichlhave edited for the Transactions of the Society 
of Biblical Archaeology, will be published in the next volume. They have 
been treated with characteristic learning and ability by Professor Maspero 
in the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, 2LndY)rewious\y by the lamented 
Mariette, Major Conder, R.E., and others. They will appear, as edited by 
me, in the new Series of /Records of the Fast, vol. v. 



^JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL/ 97 

trict so well-known as Mount Ephraim, D^dn in. ' An 
expression,' says Canon Tristram, 'which comprises all 
the hilly region from within a few miles north of 
Jerusalem at Bethel, as far as the plain of Esdraelon, 
including therefore the whole of the west allotment of 
Manasseh. Mount Ephraim was to the northern country 
what the hill country of Judah was to the southern — the 
backbone, centre, and strength of the nation/ 

Rising on the east from the Jordan valley, this block 
of high land sinks down into the plain about Hadithah, 
the Hadid of the Bible, inn. The present name is in 
exact conformity with the hieroglyphic. 

The place before this in the list is Naun, Nun, a very 
interesting name, which still haunts the district north and 
south of Jebel et-Teyi, which I take as identical with 
the district of Tai'a, immediately preceding it in the list. 
Within three or four miles are Jefa Nun, Neby Nun, a 
sacred place to the east of Yanun, and, twelve miles 
further west, is the celebrated place where Nun, the father 
of Joshua, is said to be buried near his illustrious son in 
the outskirts of Kefr Haris ^ 

Jerome says that the holy lady Paula, who visited 
Timnath-serah, wondered that Joshua, who was the ruler 
of Israel, and the distributer of all the inheritances of 
the tribes, chose only a rough mountain tract of country 
for himself But it may be that he chose the inheritance 
of his fathers, which bore the name of a great ancestor of 
his own. The family had, perhaps, possessions here, to 
which they returned with their great leader, a prince of 
Ephraim. At all events, the name Nun was borne by a 
district in this region when Thothmes subjugated the 

^ Pal. Survey^ Mem. vol. ii. p. 285. 
G 



98 * JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL/ 

country, some three centuries before ' they buried him in 
the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah, which is 
in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of 
Gaash/ 

These places, occurring with Joseph-el in the tribute- 
list, I have included, in order to show that we are led to 
the mountains of Ephraim in seeking a local habitation 
for that interesting name. And if Har be indeed Har 
Ephraim, then our Joseph-el may linger in Yasuf, 
anciently called Yusepheh, and known as Yasuf in the 
Samaritan Book of Joshua ^. 

Yasuf, with its wady, is not five miles east of Kefr 
Haris and Neby Nun. Yusephel may have been 
softened into Yusepheh, as Ekrebel (Judith vii. 18) 
into Akrabeh^; Irpeel into Rafat^; and Jabneel into 
Yebnah. 

The description of Yasuf in the Memoirs would suit a 
place of importance in early times. It is an 'ancient 
village in a valley, with a good spring in the village, and 
olives. A beautiful garden of pomegranates exists north 
of the spring. The water comes out of a cleft in a clifif, 
near which is an ancient well with steps. There is a 
sacred place, with a large oak (Sindian), and a ruined 
shrine, south-west of the village, near 'Ain er Raja. 
There are drafted stones in many houses, and remains of 
well-built enclosures now ruined. Many well-cut rock 
tombs are also found on either side.' 

There is a Wady Yasuf over the hill to the north. 
Now we turn to the name of Jacob-el, which occurs as 

* Palestine Survey \ sheet xiv. mp. ; Memoirs y vol. ii. p. 287. Name 
Lists y p. 250. Neubauer, Geog, du Talmud y p. 90. 

* Handbook of the Bible, p. 290. ^ Ibid, Index, p. 415. 



* JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' 99 

No. 102 of our list, and appears to belong to a region 
farther south. 

At all events, it seems that we have the names of 
Jacob and of Joseph in Palestine at this early period ; of 
Jacob somewhere in the southern region, and of Joseph in 
that very ' Mount Ephraim ' where his heirs strengthened 
their power on their return from captivity in Egypt. 

The historical setting of these data has been thus 
given by M. Groff: 'We ask ourselves naturally how 
these data agree with history. The tradition places the 
descent of Israel into Egypt under one of the Shepherd- 
kings, which it names Aphobis. It is evidently one of 
the Apapis ; it was probably under a king of the same 
name that the national war of independence broke out. 

' Under Amosis the Shepherds were expelled and the 
XVIIIth dynasty was founded, of which the great Thoth- 
mes III. figures as the sixth king. Under his reign we 
see the coalition against him of Canaanite tribes, among 
whom we find the tribes of Jacob-el and Joseph-el. After 
the fall of the XVIIth dynasty was founded the XlXth, 
with Rameses. 

' It was probably under Rameses II. that, according to 
the Biblical narrative, Moses was born, and under his 
son and successor Merenphtah that the Exodus took 
place. There we find the Hebrews divided into twelve 
tribes, of whom ten came directly from the patriarch 
Jacob, and the two others belonged to Joseph. Thus we 
see the perfect agreement of our hieroglyphic information, 
which divides at the epoch of Thothmes III. the 
Hebrews into two tribes, those of Jacob and Joseph, 
and of the Bible at the epoch of the Exodus, which gives 
us perfectly the same impression. 

G % 



ICO 'TACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' 

' Genesis finishes with the death of Jacob and of Joseph, 
and Exodus cooMnences, so to say, with Mos^ What 
had passed between these two epochs ? It is then that 
the hierogh-phs show us two tribes. The one callii^ 
itself Jacob-el, the other Joseph-el. made prisoners by 
Thothmes III., at Magiddo, and brought captive into 
Egj-pt to Thebes. Have we here a .cs: ri^e of the 
Bible.?' 

Professor Maspero objects that these lists are not of 
tribes or peoples, except in the case of such ethnic names 
as Rutennu, Kheta. &c., which figure at the beginning, 
* as titles of a chapter, and not in the body of the chapter 
itself; loushep-ilou. lakob-ilou. represent then, accord- 
ing to analogy, either compac: . ' .i^tf :: :::5tricts of 
small extent, forming what we s: ^^ :.ill in the East a 
bded^ z:-.3,z is a number of houses or huts scattered in 
small ^ : :5, but belonging to ore :-ri : r fi me chief 
or chieis. But is this saying that : t t :r entirely 

unconnected with :h e two Heb: r :is .- The 

scribes who gaLQered :he pr::r.::: ^ :. r. :y of Judaea 
found the narratives relating :: '^::z : : ~ Joseph scat- 
tered over the territory'. ^:.i ::„-: ::.z: .ive localized 
them in availing themselves of the asf: .i: :e5 which 
certain geographical names preserved with ::-e :. - : ti 
of the patriarchs. TThe town of Gerar and thr liy 
Gerar play a great part in the history of Abr^ 
of Isaac ; the localities loushep-ilou, lakob-ilou may have 
beer, arrached in the same way to the name of Jacob and 
to ::".-.: :: Joseph by some tradition now lost ^.' 

Ir. r y communication to the Society- of Biblical 
Aiz^:.zziogy on the List of Palestine (May 3, 1887), I 

^ TrmmsmOima §fVu Vktgria InsiiimU, May 7. 1888. 



'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' lOI 

have said : ' For 78 I have already suggested Yasuf as a 
" local habitation," and it seems to me possible that Taqbal 
may be found in Khurbet Iqbala^. The y may have 
been changed for alif'^'- ; and, whether we regard the name 
as personal or tribal, it is evident that it may have been 
attached to a place, and found there by Thothmes, and 
enrolled for tribute. 

Iqbala is six miles west of Jerusalem, a little way 
south of the road to Jaffa. " at a spring in the valley," and 
six miles south of Beit 'Or el Foka (Upper Beth- 
Khoron).' A Wady Iqbala runs northward from it. 

I do not insist on this suggestion, or on that of 
Yusepheh (Yasuf) for the other name. Some other and 
better explanation may be found. But it would be a 
great omission in writing on the life and heritage of 
Joseph to take no account of these interesting points. 

M. Groff, in a later communication to the Revtie 
Egyptolvgique (1885, p. 151), thus \\Tites : ' It is now many 
years since that in reading attentively the sacred history 
we were forcibly struck by the coincidence that Genesis 
halts abruptly about the epoch when profane history 
informs us that the Semitic Shepherd-kings were expelled 
from Egv^pt. Tradition places the descent of Israel into 
Egypt under the Shepherd-king Aphobis. and the first 
Sallier papyrus tells us of a revolt of the Egj^ptians 
against a king called Apapi. 

' Exodus only takes up the histor\' with Ramses II. 
This enormous gap in the Hebrew text stretches then 
since nearly the end (?) of the XVIIth dynasty to the 

^ Sheet xvii Lt ; Xame Lists, p. 307 ; Memoirs, voL iii. pp. 163, 165 ; 
Quarterly Statement, 1SS4, pp. 1S4, 243 ; 1SS6, p. 57. 
* See Nam^ Lists, Introduction. 



lOiJ 'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL. 

middle of the XlXth. We asked ourselves then if 
there were not among the hieroglyphic texts of Egypt 
something which might be likely to fill it. Our work 
is perhaps a first ray of light in these shades. We have 
established a fixed point round which other historic 
facts will group themselves. For where the Bible is 
silent the hieroglyphics speak.' 

I cannot accept M. Groff's hypothesis that the 
families of Jacob and of Joseph had gone back at the 
expulsion of the Hyksos rulers by Aahmes I., and 
had been found by Thothmes III. in Palestine, and 
brought back into Egypt among his prisoners of war. 
That their names had clung to their possessions, 
and had so been enrolled among other localities, 
appears likely enough. But it is not quite right to 
say that the Book of Exodus only takes up the history 
with Rameses II. For the book, with its conjunctive 
first word, gives us the roll of names, and adds very 
much in a few words in continuation of the last words 
of Genesis : ' And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and 
all that generation. And the children of Israel were 
fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and 
waxed exceeding mighty ; and the land was filled with 
them.' And we find them where we had left them, in 
the eastward part of the Delta, with no hint of anything 
but continuance there during the interim. 

With regard to the exact date of the Karnak tribute- 
lists of Thothmes III. we have now further information 
to go upon, for in the Zeitschrift filr Aegyptische 
Sprache^ Sept. 1889, is an elaborate and important 
article on the absolute dates of the reign of that great 
king, grounded on astronomical data and calculations, 



'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL/ I03 

from which it is conckided that he came to the throne 
on the 20th March, in the year 1503, and died on the 
14th February, in the year 1449 ^'^- The author of 
this paper is Dr. Eduard Mahler, of Vienna ; and from 
a note at the conclusion, by the celebrated editor of 
the journal, Brugsch-Pasha, it would appear that these 
results are assured. 

Now we know that it was in the twenty-third year 
of the reign of Thothmes that the great campaign of 
Megiddo was achieved, and this will give us the year 
1480 B. C. 

The Exodus took place probably in the first 
quarter of the 13th century, so that our knowledge 
of all these names in Palestine dates from about two 
centuries before that great event. The entire and 
unquestioned sovereignty of all the countries between 
the Nile and the Euphrates, which we find estab- 
lished some eighty years later in the time of Amen- 
hotep III., as proved by the correspondence from 
royal persons in Babylonia and Northern Syria, con- 
tained in the cuneiform tablets of Tel-el-Amama, 
shows us how real and substantial the conquest of 
our Thothmes must have been, and how unquestioned 
his authority. It is true indeed that the seat of govern- 
ment and centre of military and civil splendour was 
Thebes in Upper Egypt ; and so much the more, 
perhaps, were the pastoral and agricultural dwellers in 
Goshen undisturbed and prosperous. 

We should notice that even in the darkest day of 
Israelis affliction the Egyptians with whom they were 
in daily and familiar contact seem to have been friendly 
enough ; and it was only the unscrupulous tyranny 



I04 'JACOB-EL AND JOSEPH-EL.' 

of the Pharaoh of a new dynasty (the XlXth) ' who 
knew not Joseph/ and did not care for the honourable 
conditions and antecedents of the Hebrew people, that 
brought down all the sore load of slavery upon their 
backs. But further on we shall take up the thread 
of Egyptian history between the death of Joseph, and 
the day when he was laid by his descendant Joshua 
in the destined sepulchre at Shekem. 



CHAPTER XI. 

JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

f^O return now to the death-bed of Jacob. How 
yr instinctive and intense is the feeling of human 
continuity in the family, that noble sentiment which 
looks back with loyalty and reverence to ' our fathers ' 
and ^the old time before them/ and is ever piously 
in earnest 

'to bind 
The generations each to each.' 

In this sort the history of Joseph issued from the life 
of Jacob : ' These are the generations of Jacob : Joseph, 
being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with 
his brethren.' And so now as to Jacob, ' he blessed 
Joseph^ and said : 

*The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk: 
The God which hath fed me all my life unto this day ; 
The Angel which hath redeemed me from all evil : bless the lads I ^ 

How divinely taught is this patriarchal utterance, 
which reaches its highest mark in the sacred per- 
sonal remembrance of the redeeming, rescuing Angel 
(^NJn ^Ni5D^), the Divine man of Penuel. Well says Franz 



Io6 JACOBUS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

Delitzsch : ' Jacob's history, in spite of many shadows, 
is wonderfully guided by God's loving-kindness and 
truth. His life makes the total impression that salva- 
tion is "not of works" (Rom. ix. ii), and it attains in 
Peniel as high a point as Abraham's on Moriah. Not 
the blessing of the firstborn, secured from Esau by 
cunning, but that obtained from God by wrestling, 
becomes the basis of the nation which bears the name 
Israel^ born of the labour of prayer and repentant tears 
(Hos. xii. 4) V 

We are not concerned in a life of Joseph to take 
into account the blessings pronounced by their father 
on the other sons of Israel, but only those on Joseph 
and his sons (Gen. xlix. 22-26). 

Here the love and thankfulness of the patriarch spring 
up like a fountain^ and overflow. We follow the Revised 
Version : — 

'Joseph is a fruitful bough, 
A fruitful bough by a fountain : 
His branches run over the wall. 
The archers have sorely grieved him, 
And shot at him, and persecuted him : 
But his bow abode in strength, 
And the arms of his hands were made strong. 
By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, 
(From thence is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel,) 
Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, 
And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, 
With blessings of heaven above. 
Blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, 
Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb. 
The blessings of thy father 
Have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors 

^ Old Test, Hist, of Redemption, trans, by S. I. Curtis; Clark, Edin., 
P-50. 



Jacob's prophecy and death. 107 

Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills : 

They shall be on the head of Joseph, 

And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.' 

I do not think the 'fruitful bough by a fountain' 
is simply a figure of one who should 'become a 
multitude/ but rather expresses the noble deeds and 
beneficent work of Joseph, which were spreading beyond 
the frontier wall of old Egypt, and would so widely 
bless the nations after the word of God had been 
fulfilled in planting His vine in His own destined vine- 
yard. We must remember that Joshua was himself a 
prince of Ephraim. 

* But his bow abode in strength ; * 

not starting aside like a broken bow. The fine description 
of Joseph's defensive power in the days of persecution 
may well remind us of our great poet's words : 

* Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.' 

The word '^''2i^, ' Mighty ' One, is only used of God 
in the connexion, ' Mighty One of Jacob,' or ' of Israel ; ' 
namely, in this passage, twice in Ps. cxxxii, and three 
times in the Book of Isaiah, i. 24; xlix. 26; Ix. 16. From 
that Mighty One, says Jacob, ' is the Shepherd, the Stone 
of Israel.' Our minds naturally and rightly think of 
the Good Shepherd ; of the Stone which the builders 
rejected, but which became the Chief Corner-Stone. 

Then follows the great benediction of Joseph's house 
in fruitfulness and blessings of the height above and 
the deep below, transcending all the ancestral blessings 
of time past : ' They shall be upon the head of Joseph, 
even on the crown of the head of him that was separate 



108 JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

from his brethren : * separate (">''ti), consecrated for pre- 
eminence. 

Now the venerable patriarch, blessed and blessing, 
does not pass away as on the wings of his inspired 
rapture, but gives his last directions in the most explicit 
and methodical way, with every business-like detail 
specified to the utmost — an example to all fathers. 
'And he charged them, and said unto them, I am 
to be gathered unto my people : bury me with my 
fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron 
the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Makpelah, 
which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which 
Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite 
for a possession of a burying-place : there they buried 
Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac 
and Rebekah his wife ; and there I buried Leah : the 
field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased 
from the children of Heth.' 

Yes ! ' They are not to be heard which feign that the 
old fathers did look only for transitory promises.' It 
was in no such spirit, but 'by faith' that * Jacob, when 
he was a-dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph/ and, 
like Joseph afterwards, ' gave commandment concerning 
his bones.' It was that great faith that dignified with 
high significance those details of identification and title 
of the 'possession of a burial-place,' and the recital of 
names so venerated and so dear. 'And when Jacob 
made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his 
feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was 
gathered unto his people.' Yes, he was gathered then 
and there, and went down to Sheol, not mourning for 
his son Joseph, but blessing him. 'And Joseph fell 



JACOB S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 109 

upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed 
him : ^ and doubtless first closed his eyes for their long 
sleep, as God had said. 

'And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians 
to embalm his father : and the physicians embalmed 
Israel.' 

Never among any people was the lore of the tomb so 
developed and refined as among the Egyptians. 

The medical art was also very early brought to great 
advancement, and the medical papyri are of high interest 
to our own men of science. The physicians appear to have 
been from the first anxious to gain information from 
foreigners ; and the Ebers papyrus contains a receipt 
for eye-salve (most important in Egypt), procured from 
a Syrian of Gebal. The religious regard in which the 
bodies of the departed were held prevented the free 
dissection for the purposes of science. Dr. Ebers has 
touched skilfully this point in his life-like character of 
the student of Nature in Uarda. But the physicians 
were a branch of the great hierarchy, and the perpetual 
treatment necessary for embalming enabled them to 
ascertain better than any other race the characteristics 
of disorders on the basis of anatomy, and it was indeed 
enjoined by kings that their mortal diseases should be 
discovered, if possible, by such means. 

The aromatics and asphalte so largely needed for 
embalming were imported from Palestine and Arabia, 
as we have seen, in the merchandise of those traders to 
w^hom Joseph himself had been sold as a slave, and 
afterwards in the gifts which his father, all unaware, 
had sent to his long-lost son by the hands of his 
brethren. 



no JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

The word translated ' embalm ' (DJn), is only used 
in Holy Scripture here, and in the Song of Solomon 
ii. 13, where it is applied to the ripening of figs. 

The equivalent Arabic word ' has also,' says Lange, 
' both these senses of ripening and embalming/ 

It is possible that Joseph's own 'servants the phy- 
sicians ' may have dispensed with some of the Egyptian 
observances of a religious kind, and that they may be 
distinguished from the Egyptian priestly masters of the 
obsequies, and so (as the Abb^ Vigouroux believes) by 
Joseph's pious care the observances of the Ritual were 
avoided. 

Jacob had been moved by the desire to avoid lying 
in an Egyptian sepulchre, surrounded by the ' pomp 
and circumstance ' of that religion which he repudiated, 
as Abraham had declined ' the choice ' of the sepulchres 
of the sons of Kheth. 

It may probably have been at Bubastis (Pi-beseth) 
that Jacob was embalmed, and the forty days spent in 
that elaborate service of spicing, and swathing, and 
coffining the venerated body, that it might be forth- 
coming at the great day ; for the Egyptians believed, 
as Abraham did, ' that God is able to raise from the dead/ 
Was it likely that Jacob and his descendants would 
starve their souls in a creed less hopeful and exalting 
than that of the Egyptians, or the Chaldseans of Abram's 
fatherland ? 

'And forty days were fulfilled for him ; for so are 
fulfilled the days of embalming.' 

And then, it seems, the physicians restored the body 
to the family : ' and the Egyptians wept for him three- 
score and ten days.' Herodotus gives seventy days for 



JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. Ill 

the process of conservation. Diodorus says that upwards 
of thirty days are occupied in applying oil of cedar and 
other things to the whole body ; after which they add 
myrrh, cinnamon, and other drugs, which have not only 
the power of preserving the body for a length of time, 
but of imparting to it a fragrant odour. It is then 
restored to the friends of the deceased^. Diodorus also 
says that there was a general mourning for seventy-two 
days for the death of an Egyptian king. 

It is to be observed that ^ the Egyptians ' wept for the 
father of their viceroy seventy days. We are not told 
what the mourning of the Hebrews was on this occasion. 
When they lost their great deliverer and law-giver, ' the 
children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 
thirty days : so the days of weeping and mourning for 
Moses were ended ^.' They had been expressly enjoined 
to put away all excessive and superstitious observances 
of the heathen at such times. 

The Egyptians in all ages have been, if we may so 
say, wild and fanatical mourners. Even when ' the days 
of weeping for him [Jacob] were past/ Joseph, still a 
mourner, with his father unburied, could not, as on 
the old happy occasion, 'go in and tell Pharaoh' his 
desires ; but, according to the correct observance, he 
' spake unto the hoicse of Pharaoh [that is, to the 
officers of state], saying, If now I have found grace in 
your eyes, speak^ I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, 
saying. My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die ; in 
my grave which I have digged for me in the land of 
Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now, therefore, let 

^ Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians^ edit, by Birch, vol. iii. p. 472. 

^ Deut. xxxiv. 8. 



Ili:^ JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will 
come again.' 

Joseph would not venture to speak to the Pharaoh 
in person, because the Hebrew custom of letting the hair 
and beard grow in mourning would exclude him from 
the presence-chamber of ' his holiness.' This is one of 
the very numerous and varied points which display the 
' ^gypticlty ' of the narrative, to use the happy expres- 
sion of Dr. Ebers. 

And Pharaoh said, 'Go up, anjj bury thy father, 
according as he made thee swear.' 

Doubtless what Jacob meant by 'my grave, which 
I have digged for me in the land of Canaan,' was the 
sepulchral recess ("inp) which he had hewn out of the 
rock within the cave of Makpelah. 

We may notice that at this time there was no difficulty 
expected in going to Hebron and claiming access to the 
tomb where, as the last interment, Jacob had buried Leah. 

It was the opinion of Mariette that the last Hyksos 
dynasty belonged to the race of Kheta or Hittites. If that 
were so, the way would be clear indeed. At all events the 
sons of Kheth were at Hebron, as joint masters, with 
their intimate allies the Amorites, in Abraham's days, 
and the celebrated information as to the building (or re- 
building) of Zoan seven years later than Hebron \ certainly 
seems, equally with the common devotion to the god 
Sutekh, to connect the Kheta with the domination of the 
Hyksos in Lower Egypt. Set or Sutekh was fully identi- 
fied in Egypt with Ba'al ; and it is interesting to find that 
the Phoenician Ba'al-worship was taught by Jezebel to 
Ahab, ' according to all (things) as did the Amorites ^.' 

^ Num. xiii. 22. . ^ i Kings xxi. 26. 



JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. II3 

Those who have studied the Egyptian data well know how 
thoroughly the Kheta were locked in and dovetailed, as 
it were, with the Amorites in the north and south alike, 
just as we find them in the Bible ; and it seems in a high 
degree probable that both these strong races together 
were deeply involved in the Hyksos invasion and 
lordship of Lower Egypt. They were fortress-builders 
and chariot-soldiers, and the nomad hordes of Shasu 
were their auxiliaries. 

' And Joseph went up to bury his father : and 
with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the 
elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of 
Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and 
his father's house : only their little ones, and their flocks, 
and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. And 
there went up with him both chariots and horsemen : 
and it was a very great company.' 

The way was open, and the great and princely pomp 
of the long funeral procession drew out its march 
through the fortified portals of the eastern wall of Egypt 
into the desert, having passed through the whole length 
of the green pasturage of Goshen. 

The splendour of such processions is described and 
exhibited in the works of Rosellini, Wilkinson, and 
others. Long pilgrimages of mourning were often made 
for kings and great nobles in Egypt itself, and the sacred 
waters of the Nile became the highway. But such a 
progress across the sandy and stony expanses of the 
eastern desert must have been seldom seen. The route 
probably lay by the ancient way, re-discovered a few 
years since by the accomplished and lamented Rev. F. 
W. Holland, which leads due east from Ismailia. He 

H 



114 JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

wrote to me in May, 1880 : ' The road which I discovered 
. . . . will, I hope, have had a special interest for you, 
as the route of Abraham into Egypt. It is a very 
remarkable road, evidently much used in ancient times, 
and it is curious that it has remained unknown.' Professor 
Maspero agrees with me in thinking that this was the 
route by which Seti I., the father of the Pharaoh of the 
long oppression, led up his troops to the attack of the 
fortress of Kanana, which would certainly appear, as 
Major Conder says, to be the site marked at this day 
by the name of Khiirbet-Kan'an, the ruin of Kan an 
(Hebrew, jyjD). 

' The ruin occupies a knoll in a very important posi- 
tion on high ground, the two main roads to Hebron, one 
from Gaza, by Dura (Adoraim), one from Beer-sheba, on 
the south [this was Seti's route], join close to the knoll 
of Khurbet-Kan'an, and run thence, north-west, about one 
and a half mile to Hebron. West of the ruin is ' Ain-el- 
Unkur .... which issues from the rock, and gives a 
fine perennial supply, forming a stream even in autumn.' 
I do not doubt that they halted at the hallowed camping- 
place and wells of Beer-sheba. 

' And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which 
IS beyond Jordan, and there they lamented with a very 
great and sore lamentation : and he made a mourning 
for his father seven days.' 

A notion has arisen that the route of the great funeral 
procession lay to the east of the Dead Sea, through the 
land of Moab, and across the Jordan at the ford now so 
celebrated, and so over the mountain country southward 
to Hebron. The only ground for this appears to be the 
identification of the threshing-floor of Atad, by Jerome 



JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. II5 

in his Onomasticon with Beth Hoglah, which is itself 
identified with 'Ain Hajlah, a little way to the west 
of the Jordan, above the Dead Sea. Dr. Thomson 
says : ' There was another Bethagla in the land of the 
Philistines ;' and it seems very unlikely that such a route 
should have been taken ; and we agree with Bishop 
Wordsworth and Dr. Thomson, and with Kalisch, who 
writes : * The funeral procession seems to have taken 
its way from the province of Goshen in a north-easterly 
direction, ... a journey from eight to ten days ; within 
the boundaries of the land of Canaan, and, probably, 
not much to the south of Hebron, it stopped ''at the 
threshing-floor of Atad," where both the sons of Jacob, 
and the Egyptians who accompanied them, renewed 
their mourning during seven days.' 

The place of the mourning has not yet been identified, 
and this is not a matter of surprise. The expression 
'beyond the Jordan,' in connexion with the Canaanite 
inhabitants, must certainly mean on the westward side, 
and this would indicate the early date of the narrative, 
written before the Israelites had taken possession. The 
seven days' mourning which Joseph commanded was the 
custom of the Hebrews, and the Egyptian retinue 
observed it with them. The scene must have been very 
impressive to the Canaanites who looked on that 
unwonted spectacle ; and they were so struck by what 
they saw and heard, that they called the level platform 
of high ground where the assembly was gathered, Abel- 
Mizraim, which might mean either the meadow or the 
mourning of Egypt ; but, considering the position, which 
was not a grassy irrigated place, but a high, exposed, and 
windy platform, it seems that the Septuagint version and 

H % 



Il6 JACOB'S PKOPHECY AND DEATH. 

the Vulgate give us the right translation, ' the mourning 
of Egypt; 

It is certainly an interesting coincidence, in view of 
the expression, 'the Canaanites saw the mourning' .... 
' for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan,' that 
the fortified outpost of the great centre Hebron should 
be called the Ruin of Canaan, as we have seen, and that 
we can trace the name back to the fortress of Kanana 
at an earlier time than the Exodus. Was the name 
Cana'an especially applied to the district of Hebron ? In 
the curious Arabic History of Jerusalem and Hebron of 
Mujir-ed-din (about A. D. 1500), he says it is reported 
that Solomon was bidden by God to build an enclosure 
above the tomb of Abraham ; and that, in consequence, 
he left Jerusalem, and went ' towards the land of Kana'an. 
After having turned in different directions without 
discovering the tomb, he returned to Jerusalem,' where he 
was told that a light from heaven would show him the 
tomb. This happened accordingly. This would agree 
with a local application of the name Cana'an ^. 

In the account of the burial of Sarah it is especially 
said that Kiriath Arba' 'is Khebron in the land of 
Kana'an ^.' 

It appears that the great escort and retinue of the 
Egyptians remained at the place of mourning whilst ' his 
sons did to him [Jacob] as he had commanded them : 
for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan^ and 
buried him in the cave of the field of Makpelah, which 
Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a 
burying-place, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.' 

^ Histoire de Jerusalem et (T Hebron^ &>c,, trad, par Henri Sauvaire. 
Paris: Leroux, 1876, p. 13. ^ Gen. xxiii. 2. 



Jacob's prophecy and death. 117 

It was seventeen years since the patriarch had been 
so honourably brought down into Egypt, and now his 
soul had been gathered to his fathers in peace, and all 
those things that had seemed * against him ' in the hour 
of his bitter perplexity had wrought together for good, 
by God's blessing, under the hand of his lost son ; and 
his body had retraced the long road of pilgrimage to the 
sepulchre that he had hewn. 

Hebron was a great sanctuary-city in the midst of the 
most fruitful valleys and terraced hill-sides. About A.D. 
1000, Mukaddasi, an accomplished Arab traveller, thus 
describes Habr^ (Hebron) : ' All the country round 
Hebron, for the distance of half a stage, is filled with vil- 
lages and vineyards, and grounds bearing grapes and 
apples, and it is even as though it were all but a single 
orchard of vines and fruit-trees. The district goes by 
the name of Jebel Nusrah ^. Its equal for beauty does 
not exist elsewhere, nor can any fruits be finer. A great 
part of them are sent aw^ay to Egypt and into all the 
country round ^.' 

Four centuries and a half earlier Antoninus Martyr 
visited the sanctuary, and found Christians and Jews 
worshipping separately, and he says : — ' The burial of 
Jacob in that place is celebrated with great devotion by 
all on the first day after Christmas ; so that from all the 
land of the Jews an innumerable multitude collect to- 
gether, bearing incense or lights, and bestowing gifts 

^ Wady, and Bir, and Khurbet Nusara are still found a little to the 
north of Hebron {Memoirs^ vol. iii. detailed map of Hebron and its 
vicinity). 

2 Description of Syria ^ &^c., by Mukaddasi; translated by Guy le Strange. 
Pilgrims' Text Society, 1886, p. 51. 



Il8 JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

upon those who minister in the church^.' With such 
devout memory was the burial of Jacob observed some 
two thousand two hundred years after his death. 

At the last royal visit, July 28, 1881, Capt. (now 
Major) Conder, R.E., drew up a very careful memo- 
randum, from which it seems, as we might expect, that 
the cave is artificially formed in the rock, and ' probably 
resembles many of the rock-cut sepulchres of Palestine, 
with a square ante-chamber carefully quarried, and two 
interior sepulchral chambers, to which access has been 
made at a later period through the roofs. It is, however, 
possible that the ante-chamber may be a later addition, 
and partly built of masonry^.' 'The shrines of Isaac 
and Rebekah are the only two which seem probably to 
stand over the actual caves, and Jelal-ed-Din says that 
Jacob was buried '' before the entrance to the sepulchral 
cave," which agrees with the present position of his ceno- i 

taph, and with what has been already said as to the 
probable extent of the cave.' 

Hebron is a most venerable city. Mr. Flinders Petrie, 
in speaking of Zoan, observes : ' This coupling of it with 
a Palestinian city ^ shows that the building must refer to 
a settlement by Shemites, and not by Egyptians ; and, 
considering the age of Hebron, it probably refers to 
the settlement before the Xlth dynasty.' 

In my Studies on the Times of Abraham^ I have dis- 
cussed the origin of Hebron, which was at first built by 
the Anakim, who called it Kiriath-Arba', after the name 
of Arba', the father of Anak. I have suggested that 
Arba', which means Four, may stand as the numerical 

^ Antoninus Martyr, Pal. P. Text Soc. 1885, p. 24. 
2 Pal, Exp. F, Memoirs y vol. iii. p. 338. ^ Hebron, Num. xiii. 22. 



JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. II9 

symbol of a god, according to the system of the Chal- 
daeans, either a deified hero, or a god regarded as a race- 
father in the olden fashion. 

This may be the more likely, since Arba' was claimed 
as the Father of the Libyans, as Pleyte has shown, 
quoting Movers. This would agree well with the ancient 
belief that the Canaanites were, to a great extent, driven 
far westward into North Africa ^. 

From the Biblical evidence I formed the opinion that 
the Anakim were probably the ruling race of the Amor- 
ites, and I have elsewhere given reasons for the supposi- 
tion that the fair and blue-eyed Libyans were of the 
same stock. 

Mr. Petrie describes the Amorites depicted as defend- 
ing the fort of Amar in the celebrated Egyptian tableau 
as having 'the skin light red, rather pinker than flesh 
colour.'^ Osburn writes : ' The personal appearance of the 
Amorites resembles a good deal that of the Zuzim [a 
mistake for Shasu] ; the complexion is sallow, the eyes 
blue, the eyebrows and beards red, the hair so much 
darker^ from exposure or other causes, as to be painted 
black. The features were regular, the nose perhaps 
scarcely so prominent as among the Zuzim ' [Shasu]. 

The Amorites came, I have always believed, from the 
plain of the Euphrates, whatever their original seat, and 
Professor Sayce has well pointed to Beth-ammaris, and 
Ap-ammeris, west of the Euphrates, as preserving their 
name, which has a chief halting-place at Gar-emeri-s, 
the region of Damascus. 

A tribe of them were called Yebusi (Jebusites), and had 
their stronghold where David drove them out, or at least 

^ Religion des PrS-israditeSy pp. 63, 212. 



120 JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

put them down ; and here, as elsewhere, they were dove- 
tailed with the Hittite in a very remarkable way. This 
was true at Hebron, Yebus, Tabor, Megiddo, Kadesh on 
the Orontes ; and doubtless these are merely examples ; 
and this fact is as clear in the Bible as out of it. The 
Gibeonites were also Amorites ^, and Khivvites. Mr. 
Petrie, in his valuable series of casts, now in the 
British Museum, has given us a good series of Amorites 
of different dates, but all of the same type, showing a 
handsome and regular profile of sub-aquiline cast, the 
nose continuing the line of the sloping forehead. The 
cheek-bones are high, the faces have a decided and mar- 
tial expression, and look like those of tall, strong men, as 
we know them to have been. They wear long robes 
and capes, like most Syrians of those times. 

In a most interesting article in The Expositor ^5 Pro- 
fessor Sayce has described ' The white race of ancient 
Palestine' comparing their physical character, as shown 
in the Egyptian wall-paintings, with those of the Kabyles 
of Northern Africa and the fair people of Palestine. ' If 
there is still a white race in Palestine,' he writes, ' it is 
because there was a white race there before the days of 
the Exodus/ 

' The united testimony of the Old Testament and the 
Egyptian monuments shows that this race was known by 
the name of Amorite, and, like the Kabyles of Africa, 
inhabited the mountainous regions (Num. xiii. 29 ; Deut. 
i. 20). It was the aboriginal race which had been de- 
stroyed before the Israelites, though their '' height was 
like the height of the cedars " (Amos ii. 9). In the neigh- 
bourhood of the old sacred city of Hebron they were 

^ 2 Sam. xxi. 2. * Vol. viii. 



JACOB S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 121 

known as the sons of Anak (Deut. i. 27, 28 ; so Josh. xi. 
21, 22, compared with x. 5, 38).' 

I must not continue the interesting quotation, but refer 
to the article. 

At Hebron the names of the Amorite princes Eshkol 
and Mamre were geographically fixed, and it is quite 
clear that they must have been as closely united with 
the Hittites, Ephron and the rest, as they were at the 
Amorite city of Yebus, of which the Prophet Ezekiel 
tells us that its mother was a Hittite and its father an 
Amorite ^. 

We must people these terraced mountain-sides and 
these watered and fruitful valleys with the tall, fair, and 
strong Amorites and their lordly allies, and indeed 
masters, the sallow, black-haired Hittites, in this southern 
outpost of their united settlements, when the splendid 
array of Egypt escorted the Hebrew procession of 
mourners to the border of Canaan on their way to the 
purchased possession of a burying-place ' in the cave that 
is in the field of Makpelah before Mamre.' 

The alliance, which had perhaps given the name Khe- 
bron to the city, and had been confirmed by a covenant, 
by the joint expedition of Abraham's house and the 
Amorite warriors against Kedor-la'omer, and by the 
purchase of the field and cave, was held unbroken and in 
honour. 

We may reasonably ask the question : Was the pos- 
session in any way enclosed or protected at that time ? 

The stately and ancient enclosure-wall now standing, 
is considered by the highest authorities to be Herodian 
work, and contemporary with precisely similar work, with 

^ Ezek. xvi. 3, 45, 



122 JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

the same flat, shallow pilaster-buttresses, at Jerusalem. 
Sir C. W. Wilson, K.C.B., R.E., writes: 'Both at 
Jerusalem and Hebron a level platform is obtained by 
massive walls of large stones, with marginal drafts. At 
Hebron a surrounding wall, ornamented with pilasters, 
rises to a height of twenty-five feet above the platform, 
and it is probable that Herod's temple enclosure was 
surrounded by a similar wall, which has long since dis- 
appeared, with the exception of a solitary fragment which 
was discovered by Captain Conder a few years ago. It 
would almost seem as if the Hebron Haram were a copy 
in miniature of the Temple enclosure at Jerusalem^.' 

Major Conder had written (p. 342) : * There is no 
reason to believe that any building was erected on the 
spot before the Captivity.' This opinion is, of course, 
quite contrary to the well-known argument of the late 
Dean Stanley, who takes the expression of Josephus : 
ixvrjixeia .... KaXrjs fxapixapov kol (^tXoTtjotr;? elpyacrfjiiva ^, 
as applying to the present structure, and writes : ' Jose- 
phus^ in his Antiquities^ tells us that there were '^ monu- 
ments built there by Abraham and his descendants ; " 
[" both Abraham and his descendants built themselves 
sepulchres in that place V'] and in his Jewish War, that 
''the monuments of Abraham and his sons " (apparently 
alluding to those already mentioned in the Antiquities) 
'' were still shown at Hebron, of beautiful marble, and 
admirably worked.'" 

' These monuments can hardly be other than what the 
*' Bordeaux Pilgrim," in A. D. 333, describes as "a quad- 
rangle of stones of astonishing beauty ; " and these 

^ Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 346. ^ Bell.Jud. iv., ix. 7. 

^ Ant. I., xiv. 



JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 1 23 

again are clearly those which exist at the present day — 
the massive enclosure of the mosque. For the walls, 
as they now stand, and as Josephus speaks of them, 
must have been built before his time. The terms which 
he uses imply this ; and he omits to mention them 
amongst the works of Herod the Great, the only poten- 
tate who could or would have built them in his time, and 
amongst whose buildings they must have occupied, if at 
all, a distinguished place. 

* But, if not erected by Herod, there is then no period 
at which we can stop short of the monarchy. So 
elaborate and costly a structure is inconceivable in the 
disturbed and impoverished state of the nation after the 
Return. It is to the kings, at least, that the walls must 
be referred, and, if so, to none so likely as one of the 
sovereigns to whom they are ascribed by Jewish and 
Mussulman tradition, David or Solomon. Beyond this 
we can hardly expect to find a continuous proof. But, 
by this time, we have almost joined the earlier tradition 
implied in the reception of the Book of Genesis, with its 
detailed local description, into the Jewish Sacred Books ^.' 

Such is the argument of Stanley. For my own part, I 
cannot think that the [jivrjixela of Josephus can be the 
present structure. 

But, apart from the date of the existing enclosure- 
walls, there are certain considerations w^hich have struck 
me with great force in regard to the matter, but which 
have, I believe, never been brought forward. The two 
points are these. First, the orientation of the enclosure. 
The oblong structure does not conform in its emplace- 
ment to the natural fall of the hill-side, but strongly 

^ History of the Jewish Church, ed. 1883, vol. i. p. 432. 



124 JACOB S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

violates it for the sake of obtaining that position, with the 
angles toward the cardinal points, which characterizes 
the ancient sacred places of early Chaldaea, not of Egypt, 
nor of the Temple-enclosure of Jerusalem. This seems to 
me to suggest the likelihood that the builder of the present 
structure may have followed the lines of some more 
ancient defensive or enclosing work laid out on the 
Chaldaean plan, and after the manner of the temple of 
the Moon-god at Ur of the Chaldees, the familiar sanc- 
tuary of Abraham's youth, whose ruins still remain at 
Mugheir^. Sir C. W. Wilson kindly gave me a memo- 
randum and drawing of the Hebron Haram many years 
ago. From the former I quote : * The building is on 
the side of a hill which has been partly excavated to 
receive the foundations ; the plinth course, which is on 
the ground-level in rear, has in front from five to seven 
courses beneath it, seven at the S.W. angle, five at N.E. 
angle/ 

Thus we see that it was considered indispensable to 
make the angles face the cardinal points, even at the 
expense of an awkward irregularity as regards the slope 
of the ground, for the building is thrust into the hill-side 
in an angular fashion. It is interesting, by the way, to 
notice that the boundary-stones of Gezer (Tell Jazer) 
mark out a quadrangular space of land with the corners 
bearing towards the cardinal points. Neither the ancient 
and interesting walled enclosure known as the House of 
Abraham (Beit-el-Khulil), near Hebron, nor the Temple 
site at Jerusalem, have the same bearings, but are faced 
with their sides to the cardinal points. 

Secondly, the next remarkable point of comparison 

^ Studies on the Times of Abraham ^ p. 12, and plate II. 



JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 125 

With Chaldaean structures is found in the mode of build- 
ing with shallow pilaster-buttresses. This is the exact 
mode adopted in the earliest buildings of Southern 
Chaldaea, and followed also in examples of Assyrian 
masonry. A very good early example may be found in 
the lowest and oldest portion of the great temple of 
Mugheir, and another in the great enclosure called 
Wuswas at Warka (the ancient Erech), faced like the 
temple of Mugheir in its orientation. 

The original drawings of Mr. Churchill, the artist who 
accompanied Mr. Loftus, are in the British Museum, 
and one of these ^ shows the construction of the brick- 
work with square pilasters as at Hebron, the breadth 
of the interspaces being twice that of the pilasters, 
which is not materially different from the proportion 
at Hebron. 

The same style, carried out more elaborately, is 
characteristic of Chaldaean and of Assyrian work, and 
also curiously characteristic of early Egyptian ornamen- 
tation. 

Now I cannot at all agree with Fergusson that 'the 
cave seems to have been left open, protected only by its 
own sanctity, like so many other sepulchres in Judea, 
till about the Christian era.' It seems to me far more 
likely that Abraham would have taken advantage of 
what had been familiar to him in Chaldaea, and of what 
he had seen in Egypt. In Chaldaea, it is true, there 
were no caves in rocky hill-sides, but the preservation of 
the dead was most carefully and elaborately considered ; 
and in Egypt, where sunken excavations were the rule^ 

^ Badly shown in a wood-cut in Loftus*s Chaldcea^ p. 172, 



126 JACOB'S PROPHECY AND DEATH. 

the entrances were guarded by strong and elaborate 
structures above ground^. 

The sepulchral chamber was an underground cave, or 
system of such, and above ground was an oblong raised 
structure, of which the successive courses were a little set 
back, so as to produce a battering or sloping face ; this 
structure enclosed a chamber for funeral observances 
above ground, and protected the entrances to the sub- 
terranean tombs. Such was the general character of 
the sepulchres of the old empire in the neighbourhood 
of Memphis. And the ornamentation of those parts 
within and at the entrances which were not left plain 
was of the same style, which we call perpendicular 
panelling, as that of the Chaldaean brick buildings. This 
has also struck M. Perrot, who writes : ' The Egyptian 
architect had recourse to the same motive, first, in the 
tombs of the ancient empire for the decoration of the 
chamber walls in the mastabas ; secondly, for the relief 
of great brick surfaces. The resemblance to the Meso- 
potamian work is sometimes very great ^.' 

It is a curious coincidence that the exterior cornice 
surmounting the walls at Hebron consists simply of flat 
projecting slabs squared at the edges, well shown in de 
Vogue's plate ^. 

But exactly a similar finishing of walls at the top is 
shown in Assyrian reliefs in fortified towns besieged by 
that nation, as for instance in Rawlinson's Ancient 

* The Mastabas of the more ancient times have been described by 
Mariette {Revue Archeologique, 1869), and in the fine work of Perrot and 
Chipiez on Egyptian art (page 169, &c., French edition), and by Maspero in 
his excellent condensed work V Archeologie £gyptienne, p. 109, &c 

^ Art in Chaldcea, ^c, Eng. trans., vol. i. p. 248. 

^ Tefnpk de Jerusalem^ '^. 11^. 



JACOBS PROPHECY AND DEATH. 127 

Monarchies^ vol. i. p. 469 ; in Art in Chaldcea^ by 
Perrot and Chipiez, vol. ii. p. 74. It is also worthy of 
remark that the length of the oldest and lowest stage 
of the temple of the Moon-god at Ur (Mugheir) is given 
as 198 feet, and that of the enclosure at Hebron by 
Major Conder as 197 feet, but by Fergusson as 198 feet. 

Now my suggestion is this : that perhaps the existing 
structure replaced the ruins of one far more ancient, and 
dating originally from the time of. Abraham ; intended to 
enclose and cover and guard the possession of a burial- 
place for the heads of his race. 

We may well imagine that Egyptian, or Phoenician, 
or even Hittite craftsmen might well enough have built 
what Abraham required ; and let us recollect that the 
fortresses of the Anakim and Hittites are represented 
on the walls of Karnak and Luqsor as lofty and 
formidable enough, * great and w^alled up to heaven.' 

Some such structure would have given defence to 
David during the early part of his reign, when Hebron 
was his capital. 

At all events it seems to me that Abraham, whom the 
Hittites recognized as ' a prince of God,' would be far 
more likely to secure his sepulchre in the best and most 
costly and perfect way known to him in his long and 
varied experience, than that it should have been *left 
open, protected only by its own sanctity.' And if so, 
surely the peculiarities of emplacement, dimensions, and 
architectural character might well have been as far as 
possible imitated, and so preserved. 




CHAPTER XII. 

THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 

^HE next statement in the Biblical narrative is a 
very important one : 'And Joseph returned into 
Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with 
him to bury his father, after he had buried his father/ 

So we know that none of all the house and depend- 
ants of Jacob and Joseph took the opportunity of this 
journey to remain behind in the land of Canaan. 

This helps to strengthen the opinion that if we meet 
with the names Jacob-el and Joseph-el there some two 
centuries later, those names belong to localities, and not 
to their inhabitants as ancestral names at that time ; but 
we will by and by compare some other statements of 
Holy Scripture. 

And now a great misgiving seized the minds of 
Joseph's brethren, ' when they saw that their father was 
dead ' — when, as we say, they realized it in earnest, and 
felt the great vacancy where he had been ^. 

^ 'They said [literally], If Joseph hated us: — if returning he caused to 
return upon us all the evil which we did unto him — ! ' (Dr. Whitelaw in 
The Pulpit Commentary^ 



THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 129 

This reminds us of the vindictive purpose of Esau in 
the prospect of his father's death, and the dread which 
made Rebekah warn Jacob to flee away to Laban for 
refuge. But Joseph was not an Esau, and when the 
message came, reciting the old father's command for 
forgiveness, and the humble prayer of the penitents 
after seventeen years of security and bounty, we cannot 
wonder that Joseph wept to think of such misunderstand- 
ing, and most of all to hear this needless injunction from 
the grave. And, when the messengers brought word of 
this, ' his brethren also went and fell down before his 
face ; and they said. Behold, we be thy servants.' So 
in that great parable the returning prodigal says : ' I am 
no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one 
of thy hired servants.' But Joseph once more reassures 
them in the same magnanimous and godly spirit as 
before : ' Fear not, for am I in the place of God ? And 
as for you, ye meant evil against me ; but God meant it 
for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save 
much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not : I will 
nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted 
them, and spake to their hearts.' 

Very well does Lange comment on this, that what 
Joseph says gives us the grand golden key to his whole 
life's history. Bishop Wordsworth would take Joseph's 
words : * for am I in the place of God ? ' as an assertion, 
* I am in the place of God : ' the sense seems to be 
(says the good bishop), 'Fear not, for I am a minister 
of God to you for good. I was sent hither by the God 
of your fathers, who is a merciful God, to preserve life ^, 
and therefore you need not fear.' This is confirmed 

^ See Gen. xlv. 5. 
I 



130 THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 

by the LXX version, and by what follows, and by the 
Syriac and Arabic versions, which have : ^ I fear God! 

In such words : ' to preserve life,' ' I will nourish 
you,' there seems an echo of Joseph's Egyptian title, if 
that indeed means ^nourisher of the land.' 

And with such divine glad tidings for the stricken 
conscience Joseph ' evangelized ' his brethren. And the 
next words carry us over a lapse of fifty-six years : 
' And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: 
and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.' 

It would be most interesting to know what historic 
events filled up these fifty-six years. 

We are indeed informed in an imperfect way from 
Egyptian sources of the main outlines of that memorable 
counter-revolution which drove out the foreign lords, 
and enthroned in power the great XVIIIth dynasty in the 
person of its founder Aahmes. 

There were in succession at Thebes three princes who 
bore the common name of Sekenen-Ra (Ra the war-like), 
and the first of these, a simple prince, we find assuming 
Pharaonic titles, although not the full style of a ' lord of 
Upper and Lower Egypt.' This seems to show the 
beginning of that patriotic struggle of which we see a 
little here and there, and know the upshot. 

This first Sekenen-Ra was called ' the Great ; ' his 
successor the ' very Great ; ' and the third was called 
the 'very Victorious' (Ta-aa-ken), who received divine 
honours in later times. As to him we happily know some- 
thing ; for two men of his time have left sepulchral in- 
scriptions of great importance : both were called Aahmes 
(son of the Moon-god), and one of them was the 
admiral, son of Abana-Baba. The sculptured likeness 



THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 131 

of this brave sailor is thus described by Mr. VilHers 
Stuart : ' A blufif, resolute-looking man, more European 
than Egyptian in features, and not handsome. A short 
and rather snub nose, a low solid brow, and, what is most 
unusual with Egyptians, wearing his own hair, and 
whiskers on his lower jaw, and wearing also a short 
beard, curling upwards from his chin, after the manner of 
mariners any day to be seen at Portsmouth^.' 

This brave sailor received his first commission from 
the 'very Victorious,' in whose service his father was a 
captain ; for the prince had built a flotilla to go down 
the Nile and attack the Hyksos in their stronghold in 
the Delta. 

The war of liberation was drawing towards a successful 
issue when this valiant king ended his life in battle, and 
was dragged dead from the strife by his faithful soldiers, 
and embalmed in haste. His mummy lies, as we have 
said, in the Museum of Bulaq^, now removed to Gizeh. 

The successor of the dead victor was Ka-mes, to whose 
queen Aah-hotep belonged that most interesting array of 
jewels found in her coffin which dehghted the visitors to 
the Great Exhibition of 1862 in London, where they were 
deposited by Mariette from the Egyptian Museum. This 
honoured queen seems to have survived her husband, and 
to have been buried with profuse filial piety by her son 
Aahmes. This king is a potentate of the first rank. 
Emerging from the long struggle of the XVIIth Theban 
dynasty, it was he who besieged the great entrenched 
camp of the Hyksos at Hauar (Avaris), and drove those 

^ Nile Gleanings, p. 234. 

^ These most interesting inscriptions are given in English in the Records 
of the Past, the first in vol. iv, aad the latter in vol. vi. 

I 2 



13^ THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 

alien lords quite out of the field of Zoan and all Lower 
Egypt, and pursued them to Sharuhen, near Beersheba, 
and ultimately defeated them there. 

He also was found among the royal dead at Deir-el- 
Bahri^ surrounded by garlands of flowers in his coffin of 
gold and blue, and on his breast his Pharaonic titles and 
the figure of the great god Amen-Ra. 

Now the record of the famine before mentioned refers 
to the life-time of Abana-Baba, the father of the Admiral 
Aahmes, if Brugsch is right ; and in that case Joseph 
would have been contemporary with the very valiant 
Sekenen-Ra, and the warfare would have been going on 
in his time. 

But, as M. Naville has said, Joseph * was a purely civil 
dignitary ; he does not seem to have had anything to 
do with the military caste.' And, although there seems 
no guidance in the Scripture narrative which would lead 
us to think of war in his days, yet conclusions from 
mere absence of evidence are proverbially precarious ; 
and we cannot prove that these last fifty-six years of his 
lifetime were spent without conflict, which to the court 
in Lower Egypt would be accounted as insurrection of a 
stubborn vassal. 

At all events it seems clear enough that Joseph 
anticipated no waning of his own prosperity when he 
promised his brethren, on the loss of their father : ' I will 
nourish you and your little ones.' 

But next we come to the end of that half-century of 
brotherly kindness and protection, during which ' Joseph 
dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father s house. . . . And 
Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation ' 
(that is, Ephraim's great-grandchildren) ; ' the children 



THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 133 

also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up 
upon Joseph's knees . ' — the prosperous family of Ephraim, 
of whom arose Joshua, to fulfil his great ancestor's in- 
junction ; — the house of Gilead, who mightily prevailed 
on the east of Jordan against the Amorites, and from 
whom sprung the valiant Jephthakh. It is not wonderful 
that the continued presence, authority, counsel, and in- 
fluence of Joseph for four generations should have 
enlightened and strengthened the two houses that bore 
his name, and have strongly cast their future in the ful- 
filment of their destined lot. 

What is told us of Joseph's end upon earth is in great 
contrast to the full and elaborate account of the departure 
of his father: nothing can be more simple and quiet 
than the last words of Joseph, which, as far as they are 
recorded, only concern those that should come after him. 
' And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : but God will 
surely visit you [or remember you] and bring you up 
out of this land unto the land which He sware to 
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.' And Joseph more- 
over solemnly repeats this assurance, and exacts a sacred 
promise, as his father had done of him : ' And Joseph 
took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will 
surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from 
hence. 

' So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old : 
and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in 
Egypt.' ' By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made 
mention of the departure of the children of Israel ; and 
gave commandment concerning his bones.' 

So did the last end of Joseph agree with the whole of 
his life's work. We have no hint of self-seeking or 



134 THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 

ambition of any kind, however honourable, or useful, or 
reputable, from first to last. 

His afflictions came upon him undeserved, his honours 
unsought : being faithful in a little, God made him ruler 
over many cities, and wielder for good of the greatest 
power then upon earth. 

It has been naturally asked by Kalisch, ' But why did 
not Joseph, like Jacob, order his remains to be forthwith 
conveyed to Canaan ? ' It is a very pertinent and 
suggestive question, which we cannot at present de- 
cisively answer. 

But, in the light of such knowledge as we yet have 
with regard to the affairs of Egypt, it seems to me 
accounted for perhaps by the altered and more retired 
position of Joseph under a later Pharaoh than his old 
patron ; perhaps by the troubles of internal war, which 
we have already sketched in outline, and the consequent 
disturbance of relations across the eastern frontier. And 
we seem to read between the lines in the expression, ' God 
will surely remember you, and bring you out of this land,' 
not only the spirit of the stranger and sojourner, loyal to 
the covenant, and sighing for the Promised Land, but also 
some fore- shadowing at least of that eclipse that should 
come upon them in a land that was not theirs. 

' Joseph died, a son of one hundred and ten years ;' and 
it is recorded of his great descendant Joshua, that he also 
had attained that age. Berosus gives a hundred and 
sixteen years as the ideal length of life among the Chal- 
daeans. But among the Egyptians a hundred and ten 
years was for ages the desired limit. 

As instances we may take one of a very early date ; 
another^ a little later than the Exodus, of the XlXth 



THE RETURN, AND AFFAIRS IN EGYPT. 1 35 

dynasty. The venerable Ptah-hotep, the oldest of 
known moralists, who lived in the ancient time of the 
Vth dynasty, says, ' I have passed a hundred and ten 
years of life by the gift of the king.' And in a court 
poem addressed to Seti II., the scribe assures him * thou 
shalt dwell a hundred and ten years on the earth.' As 
Pierret writes : ' It is the number of years invariably 
adopted by the formulary of the inscriptions, whenever 
there is asked of the gods the boon of a long and happy 
existence.' Joseph had reached this milestone in his 
pilgrimage so much desired by the sons of Mizraim. 

It is duly noticed that Joseph was embalmed and put 
in a coffin in Egypt, thus recording the ceremonial pre- 
servation of his body ; and this was done in view of his 
last injunction. Doubtless this coffin was a wooden 
sepulchral chest (Hebrew jn^), such as the Egyptians 
often used to enclose their mummies. 

We are not told that Joseph instructed the sons of 
Israel as to his chosen burial-place in the Promised 
Land. It is probable that, with characteristic thought- 
fulness, he made no mention of this in the oath that he 
exacted from them, leaving the matter to be decided by 
the chiefs of his house and the leaders of his people 
when the appointed time should come. 

The deposit of the mummy was a most sacred family 
trust ; an object of great veneration and care, for which 
the Egyptians, more than any other people upon earth, 
made the most costly, self-denying, and elaborate pro- 
vision. 

Doubtless the charge devolved on Ephraim and his 
house; and Joshua would be in his generation the right 
guardian of the body of his great forefather. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS, 



yr}^ E do not feel that we have said farewell to Joseph, 
although indeed his life is over, until we have 
seen his bones carried across the Jordan in their stately 
receptacle, and safely deposited in his own inheritance. 
We will therefore endeavour to sketch the intermediate 
history in the light of the more recent results of Egypto- 
logical discovery. 

We have already brought down the course of events 
to the expulsion of the Hyksos with their military power 
out of Egypt. The great fortified position of Hauar, 
somewhere to the east of Zoan, has not yet been de- 
finitely identified. The Israelites in their pacific pursuits 
may not have been involved, at least in any large and 
corporate manner, in this war ; and it is considered cer- 
tain that other kindreds of foreign stocks were not ex- 
pelled, but remain to this day, as Mariette has so 
graphically told us, in the marsh lands and wide ex- 
panse eastward of the main Nile-branches of the Delta. 

Aahmes the conqueror, after he had pacified Egypt, 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 137 

and secured his eastern line of defences, reopened the 
great white limestone quarries of Tura, in the twenty- 
second year of his reign, near the present Cairo, for the 
structures of the temples of Memphis and Thebes. But 
the great scarcity of monumental or other relics of this 
whole XVIIIth dynasty in the Delta generally seems to 
show that the Pharaohs of that time avoided this part of 
the country as regards residence and their royal presence, 
and left it to the government of deputies. It was not 
till a later time that the land of Goshen was fully attended 
to, and brought into the regular system of Egyptian cul- 
ture and administration. 

Meanwhile the kings of Egypt, now equipped with the 
important chariot-forces, pushed across the frontier their 
conquests in Asia. Amenhotep I., and his son Thothmes 
I., undertook in earnest the conquest of Syria and Meso- 
potamia, and returned in triumph to Thebes with the 
spoils and captives of their wars. Next in the genealogy 
and on the throne came Thothmes II., and his ambitious 
and accomplished sister Hatasu (or Hatshepsu). This 
great lady, a high and mighty prince indeed, like our 
Queen Elizabeth, assumed the masculine symbols of 
Pharaonic dignity, and ruled with great intelligence and 
success. The expedition of her fleet down the Red Sea 
to the incense-bearing land of Pun is graphically set 
forth in the beautiful relief-sculptures of her magnificent 
edifice of Deir-el-Bahri. 

In her time all went well, and tribute came in freely ; 
but no sooner was this great queen s younger brother 
Thothmes III. left alone on the throne than a general 
rising broke out from the borders of Egypt to the 
northern frontier, and a muster of Asiatic enemies in 



138 EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

great force took place at Meglddo, which led to the wars 
of this most distinguished of all the Pharaohs. A 
monument of high interest for his time is the inscription 
of Amen-em-heb, another hero of the mettle of Admiral 
Aahmes, who closely attended the person of the king in 
the Negeb of Southern Palestine, and all the way north- 
wards to Naharina, on the Euphrates, fighting near 
Aleppo, at Karkemish, and in the land of Sentsar, and 
again at Kadesh on Orontes ; and another time at Nii, 
where the king killed 120 elephants for their ivory. 
Afterwards he attended Amenhotep II., the son and suc- 
cessor of Thothmes III., in his victorious campaigns. 
We find the prisoners taken in Naharina called by the 
familiar name of *Amu, which reminds us that Balaam is 
described as dwelling by the river (Euphrates) in the 
land of the Bene-'Amu. He was a lord of the 'Amu, 
the Semites, in close contact with the Khatti or Kheta^. 
The vast and successful enterprises of this great king 
are very well summed up by Brugsch in his history — I 
quote from the English translation : — ' Henceforward an 
important field is opened to our enquiries. Egypt itself 
forms the central point of a world-intercourse, which, 
carried on by trade and war, affords us an unexpected 
view into the past, and into the life of the peoples of this 
very old period of the world. We shall see how the 
king undertook to measure himself in battle with the 
mightiest empire of the old time, and how he carried his 

^ It is a striking illustration of the collocation of separate races that the 
Egyptian tableaux represent two highly-contrasted types under the name 
Ruten, or Luten, the one thoroughly Semitic, the other quite resembling the 
Kheta. This may be well seen in Mr. Petrie's collection of casts of ethnic 
types in the British Museum, to which we have before referred. 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 1 39 

arms to the extremest frontiers of the then known earth, 
whether it were in Asia towards the east, or in Libya 
towards the west, or in the south as far as the heart of 
Africa. We shall learn by name and number, by quan- 
tity and weight, a complete list of the productions of 
foreign countries ; some of them under their own native 
appellations, both those which the soil of the earth pro- 
duce, and those which the trained hand of the skilful 
workman knew how to fashion for the wants of war or 
peace. We are astonished at the countless riches which 
were laid up in the treasuries of the temples. These 
same inscriptions on the stone walls of the temples, 
which, then in a better state of preservation, the wise 
men of Thebes once read and explained to the Emperor 
Germanicus, on his visit to the Anion city, still to this 
day confirm to us what Tacitus has related. *' There was 
read'' — thus states the Roman historian — ''the tributes 
imposed on the nations^ the weight in silver and gold, 
the number of weapons and horses, and the presents in 
ivory and sweet scents given to the temples, how much 
wheat and effects of all sorts, each nation had to provide, 
in truth not less great than what at present the power of 
the Parthian or the Roman might imposes."' 

It was A.D. 19 that Germanicus visited Egypt, a little 
while before his lamented death. The treasures of 
monumental information which the long reign of this 
Pharaoh has bequeathed to us almost exceed description : 
and the historical and geographical data which he has 
left us, extending right round the vast circuit from the 
Soudan, Somali land, through Palestine and Northern 
Syria, across the Euphrates, and down its course to 
Chaldsea^ are even yet imperfectly studied and un- 



I40 EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

developed in their full results. Indeed, it has been 
rather the fashion to view as boastful exaggeration the 
records of these conquests, until the recent acquisition of 
the cuneiform despatches of Tel-el-Amarna forced us to 
the conclusion that the actual sovereignty of this vast 
region, comprising the full circuit of the ancient empires, 
lay in the hands of successive Pharaohs of this great 
XVIIIth dynasty. It required more than thirteen cam- 
paigns to bring about this submission, and to bring in 
the steady streams of tribute from Assur, Babel, the 
Ruten of Syria, the mountaineers of the Lebanon, 
the coast cities of Phoenicia, the island of Cyprus, 
the wild wanderers of the Sinaitic peninsula and the 
Arabian deserts, the Amorites and the Hittites, the 
mingled races of Cush, and of the coast-lands of the 
Red Sea. 

Amenhotep II., son and successor of Thothmes III., 
made war in the Euphrates-region, and we find him at 
Nii in the north, as well as opposite to the Palmyra dis- 
trict of later days. His successor and son Thothmes 
IV. made war against the Kheta, from whom Thothmes 
III. had received tribute, and had with him a valiant 
staff officer, a successor of Aahmes and Amen-em-heb, 
named Amenhotep, who fought by his side from Naha- 
rina in the north to Galla-land in Africa. 

The same far-reaching empire owned the sway of the 
next Pharaoh, the celebrated Amenhotep III., whose 
vast twin statues cast their shadows across the plain of 
Thebes, and whose dealings with the river-land of Naha- 
rina were still more important than those of the kings 
before him ; for, although his wars were mostly in Kush, 
it was in Naharina that he hunted and slew 2io lions, 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 141 

and won his beloved queen Taia, daughter of lua and 
his wife Tua. The differences of opinion with regard to 
the race to which this king's mother belonged are now 
laid at rest by the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, in which we 
find that her father was King of Mitani, which was a part 
of the region called by the Egyptians Naharina, between 
the Euphrates and the Belikh river. Her nephew was 
named Dusratta, and in his turn became king ; and a 
daughter of that prince became the wife of her cousin 
Amenhotep IV., the renowned patron of a rival worship 
in Egypt, which was intended to supplant the old Egyp- 
tian gods with their temples and hierarchies. This was 
the cultus of the solar disk under the name Aten, from 
which he assumed the name Khu-en-Aten, glory of 
Aten ; and, since he could not induce the Thebans to 
give up their worship of Amen for the new religion, he 
built a new capital, which after a short life fell into ruins, 
and is now called Tel-el-Amarna. 

There has been a very interesting controversy as to 
the real origin of this worship, which had been supposed 
to be an importation from Syria and connected with 
the worship of Adonis, or^ at all events, Aten was 
taken as equivalent to the Semitic adon (p^X, or ps), 
4ord.' 

But Professor Maspero has repudiated all such notions, 
and strongly insisted that Tala was a high-born Egyptian 
lady, and no foreigner, and that the Aten-cult was not 
exotic at all, but home-born and long established in the 
land. M. Bouriant has taken the same view\ but admits 
that ' in strictness this word (aten) might be a transcrip- 

* Rec, de Travaux^ vol. vi. p. 51. 



14^ EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

tion of AdonaY or Adonis ; it even ought to be so (// a du 
meme en etre ainsi)^ if Amenhotep IV. was truly a 
Semite.' 

This is a very interesting admission, for we are now 
aware that his mother Taia was indeed a princess of Meso- 
potamia, and his own wife was her niece ^ This fact, by 
the way, accounts for the almost ludicrous uniformity of 
the faces of the king and queen in those quaint relief- 
sculptures which have so stimulated the fancy of Egypt- 
ologists. 

Although, as M. Bouriant pleads, there are proofs at 
Gizeh of Aten-worship before the reign of this Pharaoh, 
they only seem to indicate its gradual introduction under 
Taia's influence, albeit not only at Thebes but at Helio- 
polis also, where M. Maspero considers that it was an 
ancient form of the Ra-cultus, ' the most ancient prob- 
ably ^.' Is it not possible that this, with its coincidence 
or consonance of name, was made the groundwork for 
a development of Mesopotamian observances ; as the 
old Egyptian Set became the Hyksos and Hittite god 
Sutekh, equally called Set or Sut ? 

Tammuz (Dumuzi), called Adonai, was a sun-god 
whose worship might well be grounded on an old Adon- 
ritual of On ; and it is worthy of remark that the Syrian 
scribes writing from Naharina address the Pharaohs 
Amenhotep III. and IV. as * my sun-god and the god 
of heaven ' (Samsi-ya u il same), and speak of ^ business 
with the house of the sun-god ' (bit sa Samsi). 

In some scenes of worship on Assyrian cylinders, we 
find long undulating rays like ribbons proceeding from 

^ See Zeitschrift f, Aeg. Spr. 1890, 11 2-1 14. 
^ Hisi. p. 211, 4th ed. 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. I43 

the winged disk, and ending in a bifurcation. Kings or 
pontiffs, with right hand uplifted in adoration, take hold 
with the left hand of these symbolic rays, or whatsoever 
they may be. Did any such motive lead to the rays 
of the Aten-disk outstretched with hands, often full of 
gifts of life and other blessings ^ ? 

Be these things as they may, it seems now fairly 
established, that the development of this exclusive cultus 
at least is due to the Mesopotamian marriages in two 
generations of Amenhoteps. 

Dr. Birch, with his characteristic thoughtful caution, 
writes thus in a very im.portant and interesting article in 
the Archaeological Journal, 1851, p. 405 : 'In the reign 
of Amenophis (HI.)? ^s already mentioned, the worship 
of the Aten, or Aten-ra, the sun's disk or orb, first 
appears. 

This name, which resembles that of the Hebrew \^>'^^ 
Adonai or Lord, and the Syrian Adonis, appears to 
have been either a foreign religion introduced into 
Egypt, or else a part of the sun-worship which had 
assumed an undue influence or development.' 

The celebrated queen's name appears in the cuneiform 
as Te-i-e. She has been confused in a regrettable 
way by some writers with a beautiful queen of much 
later time, the consort of Set-nekht, whose name was 
Titi. 

In one of the Tel-el-i\marna letters, the writer Aziru 
addresses his ' father ' Dudu as a person of high authority 
at court, ' a fact,' as Professor Sayce says, ' which s-hows 
the high position held in Egypt by Semites belonging 
to the Canaanite, if not to the Hebrew race, at the close 

^ Perrot et Chipiez, Art in ChaldcBa, vol. ii. p. 273, cf. p. 261. 



144 EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

of the XVIIIth dynasty. . . . Aziru, the son of Dudu, is 
probably the officer mentioned in XII, 8, [another 
tablet], who was the representative of the Pharaoh in 
Phoenicia.' 

Now at Tel-el-Amarna is a tomb of Tutu, with a fine 
hymn to Aten ; and in the British Museum is * a se- 
pulchral tablet of Tutu, on which is seen an adoration 
to the haw^k-headed god Horus^.' I think these belong 
to the same officer, who may well be the Dudu of the 
tablet. This name is, as Prof. Sayce has pointed out, 
identical with Dud, Daud, David, which, indeed, we 
have in the Old Testament in the form Dudu (Dodo). 

Dr. Kellogg in his interesting lectures ^ has assigned 
to Joseph's government the time of Thothmes III., and 
ascribes to his influence ' that curious marriage of the 
third Amenophis, that undoubtedly can be adequately 
explained by the presence of some of Joseph's kindred 
in the court circle.' Now, although this chronology 
is untenable, yet it may be thought that the in- 
fluence of Joseph may have coalesced with other 
Semitic tendencies under the hand of Queen Tai'a and 
her niece and daughter-in-law to break up the power of 
the Theban hierarchy of Amen, and supplant it by a 
new system of Heliopolitan affinity. And perhaps a 
great court-officer of so Hebraic a name as Dudu may 
have come from that quarter. At any rate every such 
datum tells in favour of the belief that it was not a 
Pharaoh of the XVIIIth dynasty, Svho knew not 
Joseph ; ' but, as Prof. Sayce says : ' The rise of the 

^ Wiedemann, Geschichte^ pp. 401, 406. Birch, Arch. Journal^ 1851, 
p. 409. 
* Abraham, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt', New York, 1887. 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. I45 

XlXth dynasty marks the reaction against the Semitic 
faith and surroundings of Amenophis IV., and explains 
the statement of Exodus i. 8^.' 

These considerations give a fresh and peculiar interest 
to the study of those strange tableaux of the Aten-period, 
and we look at the cringing figures and aquiline coun- 
tenances of the high ministers in attendance on the 
un-Egyptian king and queen under a new light. Indeed, 
they were exotic potentates, for Amenhotep III. had 
a mother a princess of Naharina, Mut-em-ua, whose 
features he bore, and not those of his father Thoth- 
mes IV. And he, himself half foreign, had a son 
three-quarters foreign, who married a wife entirely 
Mesopotamian. Thus the drift had been great and 
rapid, and once more the old stock of the Egyptian 
aristocracy and hierarchy found themselves 'among 
new men, strange faces, other minds.' The ^ strange 
faces ' may be seen in the fine engravings of Prisse, or, 
more easily, in some illustrations given by Mr. Villiers 
Stuart 2. 

As to the king himself, I account for his features as 
inherited from his grandmother and father, on the one 
hand, and on the other from the Semitic line of Tai'a, 
his mother ; and his ungainly figure is misshapen by the 
obesity so well known in Ethiopia, and so grotesquely 
shown in the figure of the queen of Pun and her 
daughter in the reliefs of Deir-el-Bahri ^. 

Brugsch has given a very lively and pleasant picture 

* Proc. S, Bib, Arch. 1889, P- 344- 

^ Nile Gleanings^ p. 300 ; Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen, p. 99. 
' Cf. my paper on ethnographic types of Mr. Flinders Petrie's collection 
{Ant hropoL Journal f 1888, p. 220). 

K 



14^ EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

of the afifectionate family-life of this royal household, 
and of their devotions, in which they adored in the 
radiant orb of the sun the creator and nourisher of all 
things. Some of the ascriptions, were they only 
addressed to God Himself, remind us vividly of the 
psalms that celebrate the divine handiwork in Nature. 
Here is an example from the tomb of Aahmes, master 
of the royal household in the new capital : ' Beautiful is 
thy setting, thou Sun's disk [Aten] of life, thou lord of 
lords, and king of the worlds. When thou unitest 
thyself with the heaven at thy setting, mortals rejoice 
before thy countenance, and give honour to him who has 
created them, and pray before him who has formed 
them, before the glance of thy son, who loves thee, the 
king Khunaten. The whole land of Egypt and all 
peoples repeat all thy names at thy rising, to magnify 
thy rising in like manner as thy setting. Thou, O god, 
who in truth art the living one, standest before the two 
eyes. Thou art he which createst what never was, 
which formest everything, which art in all things ; we 
also have come into being through the word of thy 
mouth ^/ 

The learned Egyptologist thus comments : ^ In these 
and similar creations of a poetic form there reigns such 
a depth of view, and so devout a conception of God, 
that we are almost inclined to give our complete assent 
to the teaching about which the king is wont to speak 
so fully and with so much pleasure.' 

^ The best view of the matter, perhaps, is suggested by such phrases as 
this in a hymn of the time of Har-em-heb, of whom we shall speak pre- 
sently : ' the king of gods ... he is Ra, his body the sun*s orb {aten), he is 
in eternity* (Meyer, Gcschichte desalten Aegyptens, 1887, p. 274). 



EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. I47 

But Job says : * If I beheld the sun when it shined, or 
the moon walking in brightness ; and my heart hath 
been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my 
hand : this also were an iniquity to be punished by 
the judge : for I should have denied the God that is 
above ^.' 

It is very curious to contrast with Brugsch's impres- 
sion the verdict of our own lamented Birch, who says 
of Amenhotep III. : ' His son, Amenhotep IV., who had 
been appointed in the lifetime of his father, became an 
heretical fanatic of the worst sort. He carried the 
worship of the " disk," or Aten, to its extreme limits, 
and persecuted all other forms of deities except those 
of the purely solar gods^/ 

It is worth while to notice that if the queen Mut-em- 
ua, wife of Thothmes IV., and mother of Amenhotep III., 
were connected with Pun, as seems so likely, then her 
descendants would be likely from her to learn affiance 
to solar worship, so characteristic of the people of that 
land. ' The ancient religion of Yemen,' says Lenor- 
mant, * was specially solar. In the sun the Sabaeans saw 
the highest^ purest, and most complete manifestation of 
the divine being, and they adored it as the special 
manifestation of divinity V 

Not long after the death of Khu-en-Aten, a great 
reaction in favour of the old system of Amen-worship of 
Thebes brought about the collapse of the rival cultus 
and hierarchy. After several obscure potentates en- 
nobled by royal marriages we come to a distinguished 



* Job xxxi. 26-28. 2 Hist, of Egypt, p, 109, 

^ Anc, Hist, of the rEast,yo\, ii. p. 323. 

K 2 



148 EGYPT TILL THE EXODUS. 

ruler who had been a chief officer of the highest rank, 
Har-em-heb by name. He returned to the old allegiance 
in religion, and destroyed the short-lived splendour of 
the rival capital. Then came, in some way not well 
explained, the transition from the XVIIIth to the 
XlXth dynasty, which is signalized by the Pharaonic 
names Rameses and Seti. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

Ameses I. and his son Seti I. reigned together, 
but before long Seti succeeded on his father's 
death. And then begins in earnest the new regime. 

The usual result of changes in the government had 
taken place on the eastern frontier, and risings of subject 
nations in Syria called the king to arms. 

Meanwhile the Hebrews had thriven and multiplied 
since ' Joseph, and all his brethren, and all that genera- 
tion ' had been gathered to their fathers ; ' and the land 
was filled with them ; ' that is, as Canon Cook says, ' the 
district allotted to them, extending probably from the 
eastern branch of the Nile to the borders of the desert. 
It appears from other passages (see Ex. iii. %%) that they 
did not occupy this ground exclusively, but were inter- 
mingled with the native Egyptians.' They were also 
intermingled with men of many races, as we may now 
say with increasing certainty, with Phoenicians of the 
coast, with the groundlings of the Hyksos hordes who 
were left when their lords and military levies were driven 
out ; with Libyans of the West, and nomads of the East, 



150 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

the Shasu of the Egyptian inscriptions, with adventurers 
of the Mediterranean coasts and islands : but it appears 
that the Hebrews, whose grant of Goshen was as yet 
unrepealed, were the most powerful element in this 
cosmopolitan state of affairs. 

In some valuable papers of Mr. Reginald Stuart 
Poole, published in the Contemporary Review in 1879, 
he thus writes : ' Unfortunately we do not know the 
duration of the oppression of the Israelites, nor the con- 
dition of Lower Egypt during the XVIIIth dynasty, 
which, according to the hypothesis here adopted, corre- 
sponds to a great part of the Hebrew sojourn. It is, 
however, clear from the Bible that the oppression did 
not begin till after the period of Joseph's contemporaries, 
and had lasted eighty years before the Exodus. It 
seems almost certain that this was the actual beginning 
of the oppression, for it is very improbable that two 
separate Pharaohs are intended by " the new king which 
knew not Joseph " and the builder of Rameses, or, in 
other words, Rameses II. And the time from the acces- 
sion of Rameses II. to the end of Menptah's reign can have 
little exceeded the eighty years of Scripture between the 
birth of Moses and the Exodus. 

' The Egyptian monuments are almost silent as to 
Lower Egypt from the time of Aahmes, conqueror of the 
Shepherds, to that of Rameses II. Whether the kings of 
the XVIIIth dynasty oppressed or tolerated the Shemite 
population we do not know. Under the XlXth dynasty, 
not impossibly of partly Shepherd race, Tanis is re- 
founded, and the whole of the east of Lower Egypt is 
adorned with temples, and specially strengthened with 
forts. Semitic ideas come into fashion. The new 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 151 

literary activity may well be due to contact with Shem- 
ites. This might seem strange of a time of persecution, 
but we must reflect that it implies a long previous con- 
tact of two nationalities, and that precisely what we 
observe in the Semitic character of the Egyptian of the 
XlXth dynasty is conversely true of the Hebrew of the 
same age, which is coloured by Egyptian, though far less 
markedly. The contact had its effect on both sides.' 

It is a very important and curious parallel between the 
silence of Egyptian monuments as to Lower Egypt from 
the expulsion of the Hyksos to the reign of Rameses II., 
and the corresponding chasm in the Scripture history, 
which is only partially bridged by the information of the 
increase and prosperity of the Israelites until the rise of 
the new king. There is a curious gleam of light in 
I Chron. vii. !^i, 22, where some sons of Ephraim are 
mentioned^ * whom the men of Gath born in the land 
slew, because they came down to take away their cattle. 
And Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his 
brethren came to comfort him.' This episode is very 
interesting indeed, for it shows that during the lifetime 
of Joseph's younger son, the Israelites were able to make 
a warlike expedition as far as Gath, without any hin- 
drance from the Egyptian authorities in crossing the 
frontier on their way out or their return. This agrees 
with the account of their power and prosperity. 

It IS to be remembered that Ephraim and his brother 
were not only sons of Joseph, but of a very noble Egyp- 
tian lady, and they would be powerful and eminent 
accordingly. 

By ^ the men of Gath born in the land ' the writer of 
the Book of Chronicles probably meant to discriminate 



J$2 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

between the Canaanite inhabitants of old date and the 
later Philistine masters of this part of Palestine. Then 
there follows a singular statement of the birth of Beriah, 
a subsequent son of Ephraim, 'and his daughter was 
Sherah, who built Beth-horon the nether, and the upper, 
and Uzzen-Sherah.' These were ancestors of Joshua. 
On this passage Professor Rawlinson comments : ' It is 
not clear whether Sherah is to be regarded as a daughter 
of Beriah or a daughter of Ephraim. In either case, she 
could scarcely herself have built the Palestinian cities 
here mentioned, which must belong to a time not earlier 
than Joshua. By " she built " we must understand " her 
descendants built." ' But I would rather take the state- 
ment as it stands, and believe that Ephraim's daughter, 
or granddaughter, had possessions in the hill-country, 
and built these places. 

Dr. Mahler, on astronomical grounds, makes the reign 
of Thothmes III. begin in B.C. 1503 and end in 1449. 
These are landmarks. Both before and after his time 
Egypt was in full lordship of Palestine and Syria, and it 
would be hard to say that a granddaughter or great- 
granddaughter of Asenath could not have occupied 
ground in that condition of things and made settlements 
in the land of Canaan. This also re-opens the inquiry 
as to Jacob-el and Joseph-el, and the occupation of those 
localities, or the significance of those names in the list of 
Thothmes. 

We must take account of the latest results of M. 
Naville's work in qualifying our opinion as to the 
presence of the XVII Ith dynasty in the Delta. He 
writes : — ^ In spite of the successes of the kings of the 
XVIIth dynasty, Sekenen-Ra and Amosis, the expul- 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 1 53 

sion of the Hyksos and the restoration of the Egyptian 
rule over the Delta took place only gradually. A queen 
of the XVIIIth dynasty alludes in one of her inscriptions 
to the harm done in the country by the strangers, and 
which she endeavoured to repair. A proof of the fact 
that the Egyptian dominion was not yet regularly re- 
established was the total absence of monuments of the 
XVIIIth dynasty in the Delta. Until now there was 
only one known, — a stone serpent found at Benha, or a 
few scarabs of Amenophis III., dug out by the fellahin 
at Tel Basta. The desire to settle, if possible, this ques- 
tion of the presence of the XVIIIth dynasty in the 
Delta, was one of the chief reasons which induced me to 
dig at Bubastis ; and in this respect my expectation has 
not been frustrated ; we have discovered important 
monuments of the XVIIIth dynasty at Tel Basta ; last 
summer, also, the fellahin came across a large tablet of 
the same dynasty at Samanood, further north. In both 
places the monuments are later than Thothmes III. It 
seems very probable that the final conquest of the Delta 
and the complete expulsion of the Hyksos dates from 
the great wars of Thothmes III., justly called "the 
Great," or sometimes the Alexander of Egypt. His 
campaign had lasting results, not only in Egypt, but 
also abroad, as we know now from the curious find of 
cuneiform tablets made by the Arabs of Tel-el-Amarna 
last year, — that under the successors of Thothmes III., a 
great many Syrian cities were still tributary to Egypt, 
and had Egyptian governors. The most ancient men- 
tion of a king of the XVIIIth dynasty is on a stone of 
Amenophis II., who is sculptured standing before Amon 
Ra and making him offerings. We notice here, as under 



154 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

the following kings, that the chief divinity of the place is 
not Bast, but Amon. The king of the XVIIIth dynasty 
who seems to have taken the greatest interest in Bubastis 
is Amenophis III. We discovered four monuments of 
the reign of this king ; two of them are statues of the 

same man *' prince of the first order, a friend loving 

his lord, chief of the works of his king in the provinces 
of the marsh land of the north, the chancellor and city 
governor, Amenophis." The name of his king is found 
on the back ; the braces which support his garments are 
tied together by a brooch on which is engraved the name 
of Amenophis III. ; another statue has it engraved on 
the shoulder, as well as a very graceful torso of a woman, 
which was part of a double group of a priest and 
priestess. Thus the XVIIIth dynasty is well repre- 
sented at Bubastis, — its high officers and priests put 
their images in the temple. Even the heretical king 
Amenophis IV., or Khuenaten, who endeavoured to de- 
stroy the worship of Amon, desired his name to be at 
Bubastis. On a stone, usurped afterwards by Rameses 
II., we read the name of his god, his own cartouche 
having been erased. In what state did the XVIIIth 
dynasty find the temple of Bubastis? Had it been 
ruined by the Hyksos ? Not likely ; on the contrary, we 
have seen that Apepi raised there his statue, and besides, 
as he says, pillars in great numbers and bronze doors. 
If it did not suffer in the wars between the Hyksos and 
the Theban princes, the temple must have been standing 
and even of a remarkable beauty when the contem- 
poraries of Amenophis III. put their statues in its halls^.' 

^ The Historical Results of the Excavations of Bubastis, Trans, of Vic- 
toria Institute, July 5, 1889, p. 18. 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 155 

The views expressed by Lenormant appear to be just 
and sagacious : ' The stranger kings had been driven out 
of Lower Egypt ; the unity of the country and its full 
independence had been re-established ; a native dynasty, 
a glorious dynasty, warlike and victorious, had mounted 
the throne. These kings appear to have left the Hebrews 
in peace, and even to have favoured them. It even 
seems that the children of Israel were concerned on 
several occasions in the early Asiatic campaigns of that 
dynasty, and had taken advantage of that circumstance 
to attempt to make settlements in the land promised to 
their race — attempts which failed. Thus mention is 
made of an expedition of the sons of Ephraim against 
the people of Gath, whose cattle they tried to drive off, 
but who slew them (i Chron. vii. 21). A daughter of 
Ephraim built several cities in the land of Canaan, 
(i Chron. vii. 24). Lastly it is mentioned that the family 
of Shelah, son of Judah, had made conquests on the ter- 
ritory of Moab (i Chron. iv. 21, 22)^.' 

But with the XlXth dynasty came the evil days 
and more especially with the long reign of sixty-seven 
years of Rameses II., whose ambitious and luxurious 
magnificence made him towards his own people and all 



^ Ancient History of the East, vol. i. p. 91. It may be well to notice 
that the foreign brickmakers depicted in the well-known wall-paintings of 
the tomb of Rekhmara at Thebes are Syrian captives of Thothmes III., not 
Jews; as Sir Gardner Wilkinson has pointed ovX (^Ancient Egyptians, 1869, 
vol. i. p. 345. Dr. Wiedemann writes on this point : ' Though this representa- 
tion has nothing to do with the Bible and the Jews, however it may have 
been so pretended {p. ex. by Hengstenberg,j02> Biicher Mose s und Aegypteii, 
p. 79 sq., and Kurtz, Gesch. des alien Btmdes, vol. ii. p. 25 sq.), it gives a 
complete illustration of the subject, and corresponds in all its details with 
the Biblical records {Fr, S. Bib. Arch, 1888, p. 36). 



156 THE *NE\V PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

others within his reach and grasp most emphatically the 
oppressive Pharaoh. 

The invaluable results of M. Naville's excavations at 
Tel-el-Maskhuta have made manifest the rectitude of 
the late M. Chabas's conclusions in his fine Memoir on 
the XlXth dynasty and the Exodus ; and the handiwork 
of the enslaved Hebrews is to be seen and handled at 
Pithom. It is to be hoped that the works of the Egypt 
Exploration Fund Committee will be worthily appre- 
ciated and supported in Great Britain, as they are by our 
brethren on the other side of the blue water, who are at 
present even contributing the larger share of the cost, 
and certainly showing that animated interest in the work 
which is characteristic of American scholars. It was 
even, I believe, through an excess of incredulity that the 
' statue of flesh ' which still remains as the bodily me- 
morial of Rameses, escaped a long migration across the 
ocean and a resting-place in America. 

Two great and prominent features of the era of the 
XlXth dynasty are to be remembered. The one is that 
the centre of gravity of the empire was once more 
established in the Delta, and especially in the ' field of 
Zoan ; ' the other that in Syria the mastery of that re- 
markable people the Kheta (Hittites) had overpowered 
the old Aramaic domination, and that now it was even a 
question of serious uncertainty whether Egypt could 
hold its own, or whether a new system of Asiatic aliens 
should bring back the days of the Hyksos Pharaohs and 
the worship of Sutekh. The worship, indeed, in a very 
strange and significant way did return in great strength, 
perhaps as a politic concession to the habits and likings 
of the eastern population of Lower Egypt. But the 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 157 

Hittites and their close allies the Amorites were now 
(as in the Scriptural account) the power with whom 
Egypt had to reckon as its rival, and with whom 
by treaty and marriage (as in the former doings with 
Naharina) a bond was formed, which has great signifi- 
cance for us as students of this scroll of ancient history. 

We must not, however, be tempted to transgress our 
proper limit, and enter on the life and work of Moses. 

To exhibit the more clearly the last result of evidence 
so lately acquired, we will once more turn to an able 
summary by Professor Sayce, in which he puts the 
matter well before the eyes of the general student ^ : — 

'The Egyptian garrisons in Syria and Palestine had 
been withdrawn, and the cities of Canaan were once 
more independent. There was no longer the strong arm 
of Egypt to protect them from their northern foes. 
Syria was overrun by the Hittite tribes, and the sacred 
city of Kadesh on the Orontes, between Damascus and 
Hamath, became a Hittite stronghold. The Semites of 
the east were cut off from their brethren of the west, 
and the literary and commercial intercourse between 
Palestine and the countries beyond the Euphrates was 
destroyed. The first three monarchs of the XlXth 
dynasty — Ramses I., Seti I., and Ramses 11. — vainly en- 
deavoured to expel the Hittite invader. Though Ramses 
n. forced the Canaanitish cities again to acknowledge 
the suzerainty of Egypt, twenty long years of warfare 
brought him no decisive victory over his Hittite foes. 
He was fain to conclude peace with them on equal terms, 
and the treaty between himself and the " great King of 

^ * Letters from Palestine before the Age of Moses/ Newbury House Maga- 
zine^ 1889, p. 261. 



158 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

the Hittites " is one of the most curious monuments that 
ancient history has bequeathed to us. 

' The wars of Ramses, hov/ever, brought desolation 
to Canaan. The Canaanitish princes stood between two 
opposing forces, and suffered accordingly. When the 
Israelites arrived, after the death of the great Egyptian 
monarch, they found an exhausted population, little able 
to withstand their attack. The Hittite wars of Ramses, 
in fact, prepared the way for the Israelitish conquest of 
Canaan. Rameses 11. was the Pharaoh of the oppres- 
sion. Egyptian scholars long ago maintained that the 
Exodus could not have taken place till after his death, 
and M. Naville s discovery of Pithom has proved that 
they were right. Pithom was one of the " treasure 
cities" built by the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus i. ii), 
and the monuments of the city inform us that its 
founder w^as Ramses. The tablets of Tel-el- Amarna 
have now come to confirm the conclusion, and to ex- 
plain why it is that Scripture takes no notice of the long 
period of time occupied by the rule of the XVIIIth 
dynasty. We gather from them that it was not until 
the overthrow of the XVIIIth dynasty that the Semitic 
stranger ceased to be honoured and powerful in the 
land of Egypt. The court itself was more than half 
Semitic, and the governors and ofiRcials of the Egyptian 
king were for the most part of Semitic descent. . . . 

'The rise of the XlXth dynasty marks the reaction 
against the policy and principles of Khu-n-Aten, and 
the successful revolt of the Egyptian people. The 
Semite was expelled or crushed as completely as the 
European would have been in recent years, had the 
revolt of Arabi succeeded. It is, accordingly, in the 



THE *NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 159 

founder of the XlXth dynasty that we must look for 
the new king "which knew not Joseph'' (Exodus i. 8). 
The oppression did not last for centuries ; at most it 
could have covered a period of only a hundred years, 
the greater part of which was occupied by the sixty- 
seven years reign of Ramses II. The two cities which 
he built were the two which we are told were erected 
by Israelitish labour ; the sacred historian, at least, 
knows of no others. At last, therefore, we have found 
solid standing -ground in Egyptian history for the 
events which issued in the Exodus.' 

It is a very interesting inquiry. What was the origin 
of the queen of Seti I., and mother of Rameses II., whom 
Seti had married before he came to the throne, and who 
survived Seti ^ ? Her name was Tula, identical with 
that of the mother of Queen Tai'a (Teie) ; and it has 
been thought by Brugsch and Maspero that Seti's 
queen was of that genealogy. Rameses I., father of 
Seti, had been in the service of Ai and Har-em-heb, 
and Maspero conjectures that the princess was a 
daughter of Amenhotep III.^ 

Meyer thinks that Rameses I. was very likely Har- 
em-heb's brother. The very handsome features of the 
Ramesside kings of the XlXth dynasty strike us as not 
purely Egyptian, but of Semitic affinity, and, as it now 
seems, Aramaic. The name Tula appears almost iden- 
tical with that of Toi or Tou (W, W), King of Hamath, 
the ally of David ^. 

According to the calculations adduced by Brugsch, 

^ Maspero, Pr, S. B. Arch, 1889, p. 194. 2 ^7-/^.^ p. 217. 

^ ' Tuya,' writes Prof. Sayce to rae, * is the name of an Amorite in the 
Tel-el- Amarna tablets.' 



l6o THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

the end of the reign of Rameses 11. and accession of 
Mer-en-ptah took place in the year B.C. 1280, and 
it seems most probable that the Exodus happened in 
his reign. And we are told that * Moses took the 
bones of Joseph with him, for he had straitly sworn 
the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you ; 
and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you ^' 
It is a very curious thing that Chaeremon, as quoted 
by Josephus in his controversy against Apion (l. 32), says 
that Joseph, whose Egyptian name had been Peteseph 
(riereo-T]^), with Moses, who had been a scribe like 
Joseph (who, however, was a sacred scribe), together 
led the Hebrews in their Exodus. Osarsiph, says 
Manetho, was born at Heliopolis, and was called so 
from Osiris, who was the god of Heliopolis ; but when 
he was gone over to these people his name was changed, 
and he was called Moses. As to these names, reported 
by the Egyptian priestly historian of Sebennytus, in the 
time of Ptolemy I. (Soter), from B.C. ^2$ to 283, and 
the historian Chaeremon, of the time of Nero, they 
are truly Egyptian in character, and (as I pointed out 
in 1880) have the last element in common with the 
name Joseph, as far as an Egyptian would know who 
was unacquainted with Semitic names. As to Moses, 
who was so called by the princess who saved him, 
when *he became her son,' it is generally supposed 
by Egyptologists that the name Mosheh (n^D) repre- 
sents the Egyptian word Mesu, ' son,' which was used 
as a proper name. But he may have borne the name 
Osarsiph (OaapaLcp) as well, and it is quite true that 
Osiris bore the title Osar-sapi. The name applied to 

^ Ex. xiii. 19. 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. l6l 

Joseph, Peteseph, would mean the gift of a certain 
god, either (as I suggested) the god of the Arabian 
nome, Sapt, whose name remains at the site of the old 
capital Pi-saptu, now called Saft, as we have seen in 
our account of Goshen ; or (as Professor Maspero pro- 
posed to me) the god Sapi, equivalent to the title of 
Osar-sapi. In fact, the latter explanation has been put 
forward by Dr. Ebers ^. 

The name of the town of Sapi is mentioned in connec- 
tion with Osiris (' the town of Sep ') on the Turin altar 
of Pepi of the Vlth dynasty. 

But the apparently wild statement that both Joseph 
and Moses led the Exodus of the children of Israel 
seems to be very well explained by the fact that the 
dead ruler of the golden ages accompanied the living 
leader through all the weary marches to the Land of 
Promise. And, so understood, the statement of Chaere- 
mon coincides with the narrative of Holy Scripture. 

It was ' by faith,' and with the highest motives, that 
Joseph had given commandment concerning his bones ; 
but the actual fulfilment of his behest not unnaturally 
reminds us of the strange episode in our own Scottish 
wars, when the old warlike English King Edward I., no 
longer living, led the army of his people, according to his 
dying injunction ; — a parallel which has an interest in the 
great contrast of character between the two heroes of 
national history. 

The unexpected and most abundant elucidation of 
the whole history of Joseph, from his entrance as a 
slave to his sublime exit in the midst of his descendants, 
which Egypt has afforded in these so distant days, may be 

^ Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 2nd ed., p. 561. 
L 



l62 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

very profitably compared with the slender aid rendered 
in the matter by Assyriology. In Schrader's exhaustive 
commentary, drawn from that source, there is scarcely 
anything that bears upon the life of Joseph or the Exodus. 

In further illustration of our extended view, a few 
points in which light may be thrown on the history 
from Egyptian sources may now be mentioned. Perhaps 
the cruel device for destroying the Hebrew race by 
infanticide may be no great subject for surprise in an 
Eastern despot. But I am not sure that there may not 
be under our eyes an ancient instance of the kind. For 
among the discoveries of Mr. Flinders Petrie at Kahun, 
in the Fayum, a town constructed for workmen in the 
time of Usertasen II., of the Xllth dynasty, where a 
great number of foreign people were stationed and 
employed, there were found buried in some of the 
houses boxes containing the bodies of infants, who, 
it is stated, had been put to death. But the poor 
parents had buried them with affectionate solicitude, 
putting beside them ornaments and toys, according to 
the Egyptian usage. It has occurred to my mind that 
possibly some destruction of the innocents by despotic 
order may have taken place among the captive strangers 
in this early settlement. 

In the other scene of Mr. Petrie's last excavation in 
the Fayum, Tel Gurob, most interesting relics of 
foreigners were found. This town brings us down to 
the time of the Hebrew oppression and Exodus, and, 
like the former settlement of a time long before Abraham, 
again contains abundant evidences of the sojourn of 
foreigners, both Hittites and strangers from the Mediter- 
ranean coast-peoples ; and it was broken up at the time 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 163 

when Merenptah, after the great unsuccessful invasion 
of the Libyan confederation, expelled the foreigners 
from his dominions. Gurob then is of the same date as 
Pithom, and appears to bear similar testimony. 

M. Naville is not only of opinion that the Exodus 
took place in the reign of Merenptah (who, by the way, 
is known from Egyptian sources to have been greatly 
under the sway of the magicians, like his elder brother 
Kha-em-uas) ; but he writes : ' The kingdom was much 
weakened by the long wars which Rameses II. had waged 
without much result against his x\siatic neighbours, and 
also by his tyrannical and wasteful rule; so much so 
that in the fifth year of Merenptah a coalition of 
nations of the Mediterranean invaded Egypt, and very 
nearly reached Memphis. It is during the troubles and 
the difficulties which beset Merenptah in the beginning 
of his reign that the Exodus must have taken place.' 

It is among the points of great interest involved in the 
fresh examination of the ruins of Bubastis, that, as it is 
now found to have been one of the chief seats of the 
court of Apepi in the time of Joseph, so also it must 
have been a principal centre of the power of Rameses II., 
with whom, as M. Naville writes, ' we reach a period of 
great [monumental] changes, which consisted chiefly in 
usurpations. There is no name which occurs so fre- 
quently in the ruins of the first three halls, which up 
to the Xlllth dynasty constituted the whole building. 
As is the case in Tanis, the local divinity seems to have 
occupied only a secondary rank ; all the principal offer- 
ings or acts of worship take place before the great gods 
of Egypt, Amon, Phtah, called Phtah of Rameses, and 
chiefly Set, the god of the Hyksos, who had the most 

L 2 



l64 THE *NE\V niARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

prominent place. Enormous architraves in the second 
hall bear dedications to Set ; elsewhere he is styled Set 
of Rameses, and his face was engraved on all the palm 
capital columns, where it was afterwards transformed to 
INIahes. Nevertheless 15ast appears sometimes in the 
inscriptions of Rameses II., — for instance, on a great 
tablet, of which we found only a part, and which is a 
dialogue between the king and a goddess, who makes 
his eulogy in W'Ords like the following : " I take in my 
hand the timbrel, and I celebrate thy coming forth, for 
thou hast multiplied the sacred things millions of times." 

* There is no question that Rameses II. worked much 
in Bubastis ; but in the way which best illustrates his 
personal character, and the tendency of all his acts. 
An extraordinary vanity and self-conceit, a violent desire 
to dazzle his contemporaries by his display, and posterity 
by the immense number of constructions there in his 
name, seems to have been the ruling power of his conduct 
during his long reign. In the second hall of Bubastis 
there are many colossal architraves where his cartouche 
is engraved in letters several feet high ; there is not one 
of them where an older inscription has not been cut out, 
sometimes the old signs are still visible, — once also, very 
likely because something concealed the end of the stone, 
the workman did not take the trouble to erase completely, 
and at the end of the cartouche of Rameses II., appear 
the first letters of the name Usertesen III., of the Xllth 
dynasty. 

* There is no doubt that Bubastis was a place for which 
Rameses felt a special liking ; he was anxious that the 
whole temple should appear as built by himself, from the 
great statues of Apcpi at the entrance to the columns of 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH ' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 165 

the hypostyle hall at the western side. I do not believe 
that there are other temples with so many statues bearing 
the name of Rameses II. as Bubastis. Undoubtedly 
they have not all been made for him ; two of the finest 
which we discovered, both in black granite, were certainly 
not his portrait. . . . They are kings of the Xlllth or 
XlVth dynasty. . . . The more we study the remains 
of Bubastis, the more we are convinced that the place 
must have been one of the favourite resorts of Rameses 
II., where he stayed repeatedly. Bubastis and Tanis were 
the two great cities of the Delta, and no doubt the court 
came frequently to both places. Rameses was accom- 
panied by his sons ; one of them, Kha-em-uas, who had 
a high rank in the priesthood, and who was inspector of 
temples, has recorded his visit to Bubastis on a statue of 
his father. 

' We found also the mention of two others, who had 
military commands. One, whose statue is in Boston, 
was '* first cavalry officer of his father, the chief of the 
horse of his majesty, Menthouhershopshef ; " the other, 
who became the king of the Exodus, was at that time 
a general of infantry ; and he appears several times on 
sculptures making offerings to the god Amon. ... It has 
been the result of my first campaign of excavations, to 
discover the site of Pithom, not very far from the present 
city of Ismadah ; Rameses is not yet known ; it is very 
likely between Pithom and Bubastis, in the Wadi 
Tumilat. 

' I cannot dwell at great length here on the events of 
the Exodus ; yet I should like to mention that the 
successive discoveries made in the Delta have had the 
result of making the sacred narrative more compre- 



1 66 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

hensible in many points, and in one especially — in showing 
that the distances were much shorter than was generally 
thought. I consider, for instance, it important to have 
established that Bubastis was a very large city, and a 
favourite resort of the king and his family. It is quite 
possible that at the time when the events preceding the 
Exodus took place, the king was at Bubastis, not at 
Tanis, as we generally believed. 

^Menephthah, the king of the Exodus, who is re- 
presented as general of infantry, executed also statues in 
the temple after he became king, but they are very 
much broken.' 

In making the foregoing copious quotation from our 
excellent and learned discoverer, I am persuaded that 
there is no need of excuse. We now possess the detailed 
report of M. Naville's work, and much of very high 
interest is clearly established. To appreciate this a little, 
it only needs to turn to the valuable little book of Dr. 
Reginald Stuart Poole, The Cities of Egypt, He tells us 
the interesting fact that Pi-beseth is as old as the second 
Egyptian dynasty, and refers especially, and almost ex- 
clusively, to the Bubastite dynasty, of which the Biblical 
Shishak was the head. He also anticipates, as all did 
who are concerned in these excavations, monumental 
evidence as to the origin and history of that XX 1st 
dynasty. But who imagined the impending discovery of 
the monuments of the Hyksos of Joseph's time, — of the 
great lords of the palmy days of his family, — of the 
ambitious and self-exalting oppressor, and his son and 
successor, in whose hands the whole fabric of his despotism 
so nearly collapsed altogether, and the enslaved Israelites 
were delivered ? 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 167 

One great point to be remembered is the return of 
royal power and splendour to the great cities of the 
Hyksos, Zoan, where the unrivalled colossus of Rameses 
rose high above the whole ranges of colonnades and 
portals in its shining grandeur, and Pi-beseth, at the 
inner limit and entrance of the old land of Goshen, which, 
now channelled and irrigated, organized and patronized, 
and royally favoured, became the land of Rameses. 

Another circumstance which strikes me as remarkable 
is this : that of all the Pharaohs, Rameses II., with his 
enormous self-inflated personal ambition and vanity, was 
the man to ' rise up over Egypt,' and, with all the spirit 
of a * new king,' to ignore, not Joseph only, whose works 
and character would be well enough known to Aahmes 
and his great successors, but also to arrogate and usurp 
all the glory of the illustrious monarchs of the old time 
before him_, suppressing and falsifying their records, and 
appropriating their, works without misgiving or com- 
punction. 

And another instructive thought is this. In view of the 
great part which Pi-beseth played as the Egyptian sacred 
city nearest to the Israelites of Goshen, and of its special 
local cultus of Bast, whose degrading worship is so notor- 
ious to readers of Herodotus, we may well perceive the 
full necessity of the Divine canons. As Mr. Poole says : 
'The golden calf and the wild dancing multitude rise 
before our eyes, and we feel with full force the need of 
those stern prohibitions in which the Law and the Pro- 
phets abound \ 

In the midst, and at the deepest midnight, of that 
great tribulation of despotism, and in the sore corruptions 
^ Cities of Egypt^ p. 163. 



l68 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

and seductions of Egyptian idolatry, the hour struck, 
and the words of Joseph fell due for fulfilment : ' God 
will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto 
the land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to 
Jacob ; God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry 
up my bones from hence.' 

There is a strange tradition that Joseph was buried at 
Pi-Sebek (Crocodilopolis) in the Fayum, and his body 
taken thence by the Jews at their departure^. The 
people of Israel faithfully carried their great hero and 
fatherly friend through all their wanderings till in due 
season they arrived at Shekem. And under the vast 
echo of the blessings and curses from the hollow sides of 
Gerizim and of Ebal, lay the bones of Joseph in their 
Egyptian spicery, brought to be buried in the very field 
of his father s possession, where the brave boy had been 
seeking his brethren when he was sent on to his doom 
at Dothan. And there, in a hidden sepulchre, perhaps 
Joseph still awaits in the flesh his further destiny. 

The present appearance of the Kabr Yusef (tomb of 
Joseph) is described by Professor Donaldson, in a short 
paper in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical 
Archaeology ^ : 

' There is hardly any spot in Palestine,' he says, ^ which 
combines as this does the tradition of past times and 
the concurrent assent as to its authenticity of the varied 
sects, whether Samaritan, Jewish, Turkish, or Christian ; 
and this is the more remarkable in a country where the 
struggles of religious strife are so prevalent, and every 
supposed holy spot is so much the object of violent con- 
tention, whether to Greek or Latin. But the truth is, 
^ Murray's Eg^'pt, 1880, p. 378. ^ Vol. ii. p. 80. 



THE *NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 1 69 

that the Christian does not associate with this tomb any 
special saint-Hke sanctity, and no superstitious cere- 
monial or pilgrimage attaches to it.' 

Then follows a precise description, with an illustration, 
of the very modern erections within the little inclosure 
wall, which was itself rebuilt in i(S68 by Mr. Consul Rogers, 
as an inscription in English testifies. This last fact is told 
us in the Memoirs of the Palestine Survey \ where it is fur- 
ther said : ' The tomb itself is rudely shaped, with a ridge 
along its length at the top, and has a bearing 227°. It is 3 
feet high, 6 feet long, and 4 feet broad. There is a sort of 
pillar, also covered with plaster, at the head, and another 
at the foot of the tomb, with a cup-shaped hollow in the 
top of each, where oil-lamps are lighted and incense burnt 
by the Jews and the Samaritans. The pillars are 21 inches 
in diameter. That on the south 2 feet 7 inches high ; that 
on the north 3 feet 9 inches. The courtyard measures 
t8 feet 7 inches square inside. The walls are i foot 
9 inches thick. On the south is a Mihrab [Mahometan 
prayer-niche], 2 feet in diameter and 6 feet 3 inches high. 

' Above it are two Hebrew inscriptions, both apparently 
modern [Professor Donaldson says, one Hebrew and the 
other Samaritan] ; a passage in the floor of the enclosure, 4 
feet wide, has a level 6 inches lower than the side Diwans 
or raised platforms. The entrance to the courtyard is 
from the north, through the ruin of a little square build- 
ing, with a dome measuring about 22 feet either way, or 
equal to the new courtyard.' 

Professor Donaldson observes : * When we consider 
the pious reverence with which Moses and the descend- 
ants of Joseph conveyed their precious relic from the 

^ Vol. ii. p. 194. 



170 THE *NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

land of bondage, we may conceive that, although the 
present erection may be on the spot of its ultimate de- 
posit, it is but reasonable to suppose they followed the 
custom of the Egyptians, among whom they had dwelt 
so long, and with whose manner of interment they would 
have been so well acquainted. If so, they must have 
made a considerable excavation in the ground, consistent 
with the exalted position of their forefather. In this 
they must have formed a sepulchral chamber, lining it 
with stone, and must therein have laid the embalmed 
body, with its wooden sarcophagus or coffin, with be- 
coming funereal rites. Without making an excavation 
it is impossible to ascertain whether any such chamber 
still exists, or to discover any further particulars of this 
sacred and interesting spot.' 

Dr. Geikie mentions that the little enclosure of the 
tomb stands ' at the end of a fine row of olive and fig- 
trees.' And in the Memoirs of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund it is said : — ' There is a vine on the north-east 
angle of the court-yard.' The vine is beautifully sym- 
bolic. * Joseph is a fruitful bough. . . . His branches 
run over the wall.' 

Josephus says with regard to the brethren of Joseph 
that at length they died, after they had lived happily in 
Egypt * Now the posterity and sons of these men, 
after some time, carried their bodies, and buried them at 
Hebron ; but as to the bones of Joseph, they carried 
them into the land of Canaan afterward, when the 
Hebrews went out of Egypt, for so had Joseph made 
them promise him upon oath ^' 

^ Antiquities, II. 8. 



THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 171 

I do not know that we can contradict this. If it be 
true, Joseph must have had special reason for enjoining 
his descendants to take his bones with them on their 
day of visitation of God, and departure, and not before. 

* By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made men- 
tion of the departure of the children of Israel ; and gave 
commandment concerning his bones.' He looked for- 
ward, we may think, to those evil days of the new 
Pharaoh who should arise up over the land of Egypt, 
and know not Joseph ; and wisely regarded the influence 
upon his own people of the sacred charge of his em- 
balmed body ; which would in itself be a more moving 
memorial than any testamentary document or muniment 
of history. 

In the History of Jerusalem and Hebron ^, by Mujir- 
ed-din, we find this account : ' Joseph died in Egypt, and 
remained buried there till the times of Moses and 
Pharaoh. But when Moses left this country, leading the 
children of Israel in the desert, he exhumed the body 
of Joseph, and carried it with him in the desert till he 
himself died. Joshua^ being come into Syria with the 
Israelites, buried it near Nablus, or rather at Hebron, 
according to a version widely spread among the people ; 
it is, in fact, at Hebron that his tomb is seen, and is well 
known. This belief has general currency among the 
people, and has never been contested. . . . His tomb is 
found on the holy ground situated behind the enclosure 
of Solomon^ opposite the tomb of Jacob, and near his 
two forefathers Abraham and Isaac." It is thought that 
this attribution of Joseph's burial was originated by 

^ Trans, by Henri Sauvaire. Paris, 1876, p. 21. 



172 THE 'NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 

jealousy of the Samaritans, who possessed the real 
sepulchre of Joseph. 

The surname of ' The Truthteller ' is given from old- 
time to * our lord Joseph.' It is the same noble me- 
morial by which our King Alfred was known by his 
people. I do not know whether the Arabic word is 
capable, like our own ' soothsayer/ of application to the 
' diviner.' But at all events the name Joseph has been 
brought into relation with this title by Professor Sayce, 
who has been so good as to give me a note on this point 
of Assyriological research : — 

' The Babylonian and Assyrian astpu was the ''diviner" 
or '' prophet " who accompanied the army, and promised 
victory, or threatened defeat, to the soldiers. One text 
speaks of his " delivering prophecies in a secret place." 
The word was borrowed by later Hebrew under the form 
of ^?^^ (Dan. i. 20, ii. 10, &c.), but in older Hebrew and 
Canaanite the representative of the Babylonian sibilant 
would have been samech, and not shin. 

' We learn from the Tel-el-Amarna tablets that the 
word had travelled to Canaan before the age of Moses. 
In despatches written from Phoenicia to the Egyptian 
king mention is made of tszpy " the prophet," as well as of 
his issipputi or " prophecy." Here the initial a has 
become i^ so that the Hebrew or Canaanite translitera- 
tion of the word would be 5)0'' (or plene H^'''')- In my 
Hibbert Lectures I suggested that asipu was the original 
of the Biblical Joseph ; it was objected that the initial 
letter was different, and that the word could not have 
been known to the Canaanites. The Tel-el-Amarna 
tablets have removed both objections. 

' If Joseph is the Assyro-Babylonian asipu^ it will 



THE *NEW PHARAOH' AND HIS SUCCESSOR. 1 73 

explain why the writer of Genesis did not know the 
etymology of the name, and accordingly suggested two 
alternative ones (Gen. xxx. 1^3, 24). The Canaariite 
expression '^ House of Joseph " will also be explained : 
this would be the Assyrian bit assaputi (or bit isipicti\ 
" the house of the oracle." ' 

It is clear enough that, whether the name was given 
to Joseph with any such reference or not, it was certainly 
nomen et omen, as his history at its great turning-points 
so remarkably proved. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE CHARACTER OF JOSEPH. 

"pT IS not well to take leave of Joseph without trying to 
(|[ form some estimate of so great and influential a char- 
acter in its more distinctive features. 

The loyalty of the lad to his father led him to use no 
dissimulation or concealment with regard to the evil 
doings of his brethren, He did not allow himself to be 
drawn in to share their counsels and wrong ways. 
Those who have had much to do with boys, or with 
servants, will know how very rare a thing is this feeling 
of honour due to father, or mother, or master, and how 
much moral courage it involves. It is the earliest and 
greatest trial of discipline and duty. This straight and 
trusty loyalty was as the strong keel laid down, on which 
the good ship was framed and gradually built up in fair 
proportions. This it was that won the regard and con- 
fidence of his lord in Egypt, and that made it natural to 
him to argue from the same principle in rebuking the 
graceless and corrupt woman ; and to fall back on the 



THE CHARACTER OF JOSEPH. 1 75 

thought : 'How caii I do this great wickedness, and sin 
against God ? ' When a second time his trusty upright- 
ness led him into the inevitable persecution of those that 
will live godly, it became his comfort and stay ; for ' the 
Lord was with him, and what he did the Lord made 
prosper.' 

The next thing is the affectionateness of his heart, 
which won for him the likmg and confidence of his com- 
panions, alike in happiness and in trouble. And a great 
firmness of purpose he inherited from Abraham his great- 
grandfather, with a generous magnanimity and unselfish- 
ness of soul. His intellect was clear and energetic, and 
his genius that of a born administrator, like Daniel, who, 
so long afterwards, brought powers so similar to as vast 
a task at the other extremity of the imperial field of 
ancient times, on the Euphrates ^. 

But there was more than commanding genius in Joseph, 
as in Daniel. Their religion underlay, and animated, and 
illuminated all their motive-powers. Like Enoch and 
Noah, they * walked with God,' as Abraham had done. 

After Joseph had become perfectly at home in the 
affairs and dignities of Egypt, the husband of an 
Egyptian lady of high position, the deputy of his 
Pharaoh ; with all that would make a man forsake and 
forget his native land ; he was so true to the God of his 
fathers and the covenant that He had sworn that, as 
Dr. Edersheim has well said : ^ Instead of seeking for his 



^ Daniel was a prince of the other great house, the line of Judah. It is 
well worthy of remark that the story of this wielder of authority has been 
elucidated from the lore of Babylonia by Lenormant {La Divination chez 
les Chaldiens) and others, even as the narrative of Joseph's times by Ebers 
and the Egyptologists. 



176 THE CHARACTER OF JOSEPH. 

sons the honours which the court of Egypt offered them 
he distinctly renounced all to share the lot of the despised 
shepherd-race.' * He hastened to bring his two sons, that 
they might be installed as co-heirs with the other sons of 
Jacob. In this Joseph signally showed his faith ^.' Such 
an one was he as those to whom St. John wrote : * I have 
written unto you^ young men, because ye are strong, and 
the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome 
the wicked one : . . . the world passeth away, and the 
lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for 
ever \ 

^ History of the Patriarchs, vol. i. p. 178. ^ i John ii. 14, 17. 



APPENDICES, 



APPENDIX A. 

Khamor has been taken as meaning ' he-ass ; ' but I doubt 
if, as a princely name, this is its true significance ; and it seems 
to me that Professor Robertson Smith has not sufficient warrant 
in treating this name as an * unmistakable ' indication that the 
' totem system ' prevailed in Canaan ^. 

The root has the significance of ' rising,' or being raised up, 
and in Assyrian the same ideograph stands for ' ass ' and ' homer' 
(measure). 

Is it not likely that the tide of honour was derived independ- 
ently of the name of the animal ? 

Among these Canaanites Jacob dwelt for the greater part of 
ten years, having acquired from them by purchase a possession 
of land for his tribe in the beautiful and watered plain. 



APPENDIX B. 

The great temple, which was the centre of Egyptian learning 
from a time long before the days of Joseph, is now utterly gone. 
' The ruins of Heliopolis,' wrote Mariette, ^ consist only of an 
immense enclosure, in the centre of which stands an obelisk. 

* Journal of Philology, 1880, p. 94. 



178 APPENDIX B. 

As for the obelisk itself, it should be regarded with 

interest, for it is the oldest in Egypt. It bears, in fact, the car- 
touches of Userta sen I., the second king of the Xllth dynasty. It 
is a Httle more than sixty-six English feet high. Formerly a 
casing of copper, of pyramidal form, covered its point, which 
still existed in the time of Abd-el-Latyf, an Arab doctor of 
Bagdad, who visited Egypt about 11 90 a. d/ 

The fellow-obelisk, formerly standing in the front of the 
temple, is now entirely gone. 

The great temple-enclosure measures about 4000 English 
feet by 3000. The sacred spring is hard by, and is hallowed 
by Christian tradition as the resting-place of the later Joseph 
and Mary with the Divine Babe of Bethlehem. 

On the general subject of the viceregal office under the 
Hyksos sovereigns, we must not pass over the very interesting 
suggestions of Mr. Flinders Petrie with regard to an altar found 
by him among the ruins of Tell Nebesheh — about eight miles 
south-east of the great and celebrated field of San (Zoan). 
This altar was originally a work of Amen-em-hat IL, but bears 
inscriptions added by a high functionary of much later date. I 
quote Mr. Petrie's exposition^ : 'They were engraved by a certain 
chief of the Chancellors and Royal Seal-bearer, whose name 
and further titles are effaced. This person was one of a 
series of officials whose titles were singularly parallel to the 
English Lord High-Chancellor, and Lord Privy Seal. Such 
titles imply a unique position, or one which would only be held 
in duplicate by a viceroy in a different province, such as the 
Princes of Cush under the XVIIIth dynasty. The further evidence 
of the power of the successive holders of this double office is 
seen from their having a series of scarabs, like those of the 
kings and members of the royal families of the Xllth and 
XlVth dynasdes with their names and titles : many such are 
known. 

Besides this, no other instance is known, so far as I remember, 
^ Tell Nebesheh, p. 16 ; see pi. ix. i. 



APPENDIX B. 179 

of a personage not actually reigning who has usurped royal monu- 
ments in a public temple, and even in a capital of a nome, as this 
chief chancellor has appropriated the two sphinxes before men- 
tioned, and this monument, by long inscriptions. This altar gives, 
therefore, much fresh light on this obscure class of officials; it shows 
that they existed after the Xllth dynasty, though of course before 
the XVIIIth,and that they usurped prerogatives otherwise reserved 
to reigning kings. So far, we are on certain facts. To turn now 
briefly to an hypothesis suggested by these facts. We find in 
the Hyksos invasion the rule of a hated and conquering race ; 
yet a rule which did not at all crush out the civilization which it 
already found in Egypt. Further, after a time, it gradually 
imbibed the civilization over which it dominated ; and yet it 
was a rule without much civil organization, if any, since it was 
only, as Manetho says, * at length they made one of themselves 
king,' after conquering and pillaging the country^. Uepas fie 
implies finally, at the end of all the invasion, struggle, and 
capture of the inhabitants. The nearest historical parallel, by 
the light of which we must judge this case, is the Arab invasion 
of Egypt, and subjugation of the Copts : here the conquered 
were under the debasement of Byzantine rule, as the Egyptians of 
the Xlllth and XlVth dynasties were Hving under the decayed 
forms of the civilization of the Xth ; but the conquerors were more 
civilized probably than the Hyksos, and more capable of organ- 
izing themselves ; yet we see that they adopted the arts and the 
government which they found in the country to a great extent, 
and — like the Hyksos — became Egyptianized. 

But one thing they took much as they found it, — the bureau- 
cracy who managed all the details of the needful administration 
of the country. The officials continued to be Copts, and there 
was probably little break in the inherited offices of the internal 
organization. Now this is exactly an explanation of what we 
can see under the Hyksos. They conquered the country as a 
military horde, without even a king; they levied tribute^, but 
^ Jos. Conf. Ap. I. 14. * 1st Sallier Pap. 1. 2. 

M 2 



l8o APPENDIX B. 

they probably had the sense to make the natives collect it for 
them, and left the native organization to follow its own ways. 
A very curious evidence of this being in after times believed to 
have been the case, even when the Hyksos were as much 
Egyptianized as possible, is given us in the celebrated fragment 
of the first Sallier papyrus, which at least shows us what was 
the tradition of their rule. In that we find, that even for a 
royal letter the Hyksos Apapi is said not to dictate his own 
words, but to be completely in the hands of his scribes, for 
' King Apapi sent to the ruler of the South a notice, according 
as his scribes knowing in affairs said.' ' This view explains the 
continuity so evident between the middle kingdom and the rise 
of the empire ; it exactly agrees with the one or two fragments 
of information that remain to us, and it accords with the 
historic parallel of the later invasion from Asia.' 

' Now to apply the facts we have noticed above : There 
is a series of viziers, men who acted for the king over the 
treasury and taxes, and over the royal decrees, and public 
documents bearing the king's seal. These men lived after the 
Xllth and before the XVIIIth dynasty. And, further, they 
would seem to have acted for rulers who did not care about the 
public monuments, and would allow them to usurp them at 
their pleasure. 

' Here we have the exact description of a native vizier of a 
Hyksos king. We have but fragments and suggestions to lead 
us, but every item that we can glean exactly falls into a consistent 
place on this hypothesis, and would be hard to adjust to any 
other. 

' Lieblein has already pointed out how the XlVth dynasty, with 
its short reigns, averaging only two years and a half, represents 
viceroys of the Hyksos ; but may these not be identical with 
the men who in the Hyksos country were reckoned as viziers, 
while by their own countrymen in the upper country they were 
counted as kings ? They may have even had a different title, 
and acted as viziers in one part of the country, and as semi- 



APPENDIX B. l8l 

independent kings in another part. Or the viziers may have 
been the lower title which the chief of the native administration 
had to adopt when the Hyksos made themselves a king. 
This is a point on which we must wait for more light/ 

' But yet one further document may be quoted, as giving and 
receiving light on this question. The account of Joseph in the 
Book of Genesis undoubtedly refers to the Hyksos period, and 
there we read, ''Let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, 
and set him over the land of Egypt," — not, Let Pharaoh give 
orders to his own officers. 

' ''And Pharaoh said unto Joseph . . . Thou shalt be over my 
house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be 
ruled; only in the throne will I •be greater than thou. And 
Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land 
of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, 
and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of 
fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck ; and he made 
him to ride in the second chariot which he had ; and they cried 
before him, Abrech; and he set him over all the land of 
Egypt." Here we read of the investiture of a vizier under the 
Hyksos, creating him royal seal-bearer, and giving him the 
honour of the second chariot. This, we now see, was not an 
extraordinary act of an autocrat, but the filling up of a regular 
office of the head of the native administration.' 

It is not to be doubted that this extended quotation will be 
welcome to the thoughtful reader. It is taken from a learned • 
memoir on recent excavations, little known except to a small 
circle of Egyptologists, and it makes still more comprehensible 
and natural the exaltation of Joseph to so great a responsibility 
and powen 

It is also very consonant with the remarkable Semitic title 
Shallit bestowed upon Joseph, and identical, as elsewhere 
noticed, with the title Salatis, assumed by the first elected king 
of the Hyksos. 

It is a very remarkable thing that among the sepulchral 



1 82 APPENDIX C. 

memorials at Abydos, described by Mariette in his important 
Catalogue General des Monuments d! Abydos^ Paris, 1880 (p. 421), 
are inscriptions of a Semitic foreigner who held the high office of 
^ First Minister of the King ' in the reign of Merenptah (about 
the time of the Exodus). His native name was Ben-Matsana of 
the land of Zarbasana, but he had, as usual, a royal Egyptian 
name, Rameses-em-per-Ra, with the surname Meri-An. His 
father's name was lupa-a, a foreigner. This tablet belongs to 
^ a group of seven inhabitants of Abydos, three Egyptians, 
three Semites, besides a seventh personage, first minister of the 
king, who is of Syrian origin, and possesses two surnames, the 
one Egyptian, the other Semitic' 

' Let us mark,' continues Mariette, ' that with Meneptah and 
his minister Rameses-em-per-Ra we are at the time of the 
Exodus. Let us mark that with all these names we may com- 
pare that of the Syrian Arisu (1D")^<), the same whom we see, 
towards the end of the XlXth dynasty, puts himself at the head 
of the rebellion which interrupts violently the succession of 
the legitimate king ^ Who knows if the Semites of our stelce^ 
or at least their sons, took part in this anti-national movement ? ' 



APPENDIX C. 

The commissariat arrangements of Joseph receive fresh light 
from the old standing system of victualling in the Egyptian 
cities, by means of strongly -guarded magazines of provisions, 
especially of corn, in the chief cities of the Nomes. This has 
been explained, and illustrated from the history of Joseph, by 
M. Philippe Virey in his translation of the Precepts of Ptah- 
hotep in the new series of Records of the Past, vol. iii. pp. 7- 
II, and previously in part in his elaborate account of the Tomb 
of Am-n-teh in the Recueil de Travaux, &c., vol. vii. p. 32 et seqq. 
We here see with what a stately perfection the system of food- 

^ Great Harris Papyrus. 



APPENDIX D. 183 

supply was organized from the very earliest times of which we 
have records in Egypt. 

It was no innovation on the part of Joseph, and if (as Mr. 
Flinders Petrie says) his office was not a novelty, neither was 
the administrative system by which he carried it out with such 
prescient success. 

APPENDIX D. 

On the Late Date assigned to some of the Biblical 
Egyptian Names. 

In the Zeiischrift fiir Aegyptische Sprache, 1889, p. 41, Dr. 
Steindorff has treated of the names Zaphnath-pa aneakh, Asenath, 
and Potiphera, and drawn from them the conclusion that the 
narrative in Genesis cannot be of earlier date than the XXIInd 
Egyptian dynasty (the Biblical Shishak, &c.). And Brugsch has 
expressed a similar opinion in his recent paper published in the 
Deutsche Rundschau, May, 1890, on the ground that names of 
the forms in question were first used in Egypt at the period men- 
tioned. 

This of course involves a charge of anachronism which would 
imply a mere fiction of late date as to the new name given to 
Joseph, and the names assigned to his master, his father-in-law, 
and his wife. 

I have written something in reply in the Academy, Jan. 31, 
1891, which has not yet been answered. This is not the place 
for an elaborate argument, but it is right to consider so very 
serious a charge against the Biblical narrator, which (by the 
way) would equally affect the name Puti-el, given in Exodus vi. 
25, as that of the father-in-law of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, 
whose son Phinehas (Pi-nehas) had equally an Egyptian name. 
We have two names of this form in Genesis and one in Exodus 
open to this objection. 

But, without going farther, as it is easy to do, a single instance 
prominendy adduced in an earlier work by Brugsch himself, 
appears to give sufficient contradiction to the late date assigned 



184 APPENDIX D. 

to names of this type. It is the very notable name Pe-tu-Ba'al, 
contained in a stele in the Museum of the Louvre ^ This stele, 
of the time of Thothmes III., contains the names of six genera- 
tions of one family at Thebes, going back into or near to the 
times of the Hyksos kings, as Brugsch and de Rouge and Lieb- 
lein all agree ; and the original ancestor is this very Pet-Ba'al, 
or Pe-tu-Ba al, for so Brugsch himself has rendered the name 
' the gift of Ba'aP,' and Lieblein (as above ciied). It is true 
that the name is written in the stele as S^ instead of the usual 
^y^, but we have in the Die/, des Noms Hierog, the pure 
Egyptian name ^ ^iJ ^^ ^^^ 1249, which seems to warrant 
this conclusion. 

There are classic authorities for Egyptian names of this con- 
struction of much earlier date. But, at all events, if no such 
Egyptian instance had yet been found earlier than the ninth 
century b.c, it would be highly * uncritical' to assume that the 
three instances of Potiphar, Potiphera, and Puti-el are all falsifi- 
cations of late date. Why should they not rank as evidence of 
the early use of names of this type at the dates to which they 
refer in the narrative ? Instead of this fair treatment, Brugsch 
has said that ' the latest redactor of Joseph's history,' w^ho in 
other things proved himself, as far as knowledge of the language 
goes, extremely well versed in acquaintance with Egyptian 
matters, 'chose out for the father-in-law of his hero a name 
which belonged to his own time, and would refer to the sun- 
priest of On.' 

This kind of treatment is surely unjustifiable. It has been so 
proved again and again, as in the case of Sargon, and the Elam 
of Genesis xiv, and many instances beside. This supposed 
proof of a negative from the limitation of one's own knowledge 

^ De Rouge, Mons. du Louvre^ 98, Lieblein, Recherchcs sur la Chronolo- 
gic Egyptienne, 129; Diet, des Adorns hieroglyphiques, No. 553; Brugsch, 
History (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p. 255. 

^ HistoirCy &c. vol. i. p. 172. 



ArrENDix n. 185 

is not to bo called a proof at all. It is interesting to remember 
that the celebrated statne of Ra-hotep at Gizeh represents a 
man who bore the same oirieo as Poliphera, as well as an almost 
equivalent name. 

The name Pe-tu-ra (identical with roiiphera, the article only 
being omitted) has been recorded by Wiedemann as belonging 
to the superintendent of oxen of Thothmes 1., within a century 
oi' the last Ilyksos king. The author subsequently corrects the 
reading to Pe-en-ra [he who belongs to Ra), a very similar 
name to both the others. 

With regard to the name given to Joseph by the Pharaoh, 
there are many rival explanations given by Egyptologists, and if 
one conjecture will only fit a late date, others will much better 
agree with the Hyksos period, as we have seen. Similarly 
the name of Joseph's wife, nJDN, Asnat, is now explained by 
Steindorff as the late form Nes-Neit (belonging to [the goddess] 
Neit) ; but Erugsch himself has said ' the name of his wife Asnat 
is pure Egyptian, and almost entirely confined to the old and 
middle empire. It is derived from the very common female 
name Sant, or Snat \ 

I am not careful to answer such an argument as the proleptic 
use of the expression ' land of Rameses.' This was in the time 
of INIoses doubtless the familiar name of the district. If we read 
in an old English chronicle that Peterborough was destroyed by 
Norsemen in Alfred's time, we do not call this statement ' an 
historical-geographical error,' because the name of the place at 
that time was ]\Iedehamstoad, and the dedication to St. Peter 
subsequent. 

A remarkable inscri})tion o( Persian or Ptolemaic date, found 
by ]\Ir. Wilbour in the island of Sehel, high up the Nile, has led 
to much speculation, which may be read in Dr. Brugsch's article 
in the Dtufsc/ic Rundschau, before cited (p. 252), in the Zcit- 
schrifi f. Acg. Sprache, 1890, 109, iii; and at much greater 
length in the former author's N\ork Die Bihlischen Sichen Jahrc 
^ History (En^j. trnns.V vol. i. p. J65. 



l86 APPENDIX E. 

der Hunger snoth^ ^r., Leipzig, 1891. In this inscription there 
is recorded a plentiful harvest for seven years, followed by seven 
years of famine, and these are identified by Brugsch with those 
so famous in the history of Joseph. He considers that the 
Biblical writer of late date brought this ancient famine into his 
story. But the name of the Pharaoh in the rock-inscription, 
although occurring twice, is not legible in any certain sense. 
Brugsch and Steindorff read it in a form which they identify 
with the name of Tosorthros of the third dynasty. But Pro- 
fessor Sayce tells me that he and Mr. Wilbour, after repeated 
inspections of the inscription itself, read all the three hiero- 
glyphic signs in question quite differently from this; and the 
Pharaonic name can neither be certainly read nor (of course) 
identified. 

Under these circumstances it is idle to insist upon any par- 
ticular date for these years of plenty and famine, and, although 
the monumental record of them is very highly interesting, we 
cannot tell in what relation it stands to the narrative of the 
administration of Joseph ; and there is no need to attach any 
degree of importance to the assumption that it is the Egyptian 
version of the ^ Genesis-legend,' which Brugsch assigns to the 
time of the XXVIth dynasty, known to Bible-students by the 
Pharaohs Neko and Hophra. 



APPENDIX E. 

The Egyptian Queens Mut-em-ua and Teie. 

In an address to the British Association at Manchester, and in 
a paper published in \hQ Journal of the Anthropological Institute 
(1888), I have given reasons for the conjecture that Mut-em-ua, 
the mother of the celebrated Amenhotep III., and grandmother 
of the ' heretic king ' Amenhotep IV. (Khu-en-aten), was a 
princess of Pun (South-west Arabia and Somali-land). But it now 



APPENDIX E. 187 

appears from the Tel-el- Amarna tablets that this queen was the 
daughter of a king of Mitanni (a Mesopotamian kingdom 
opposite to Karkemish). 

With regard to the well-favoured royal lady Teie, wife of 
Amenhotep IV., Professor Sayce has inferred from a passage in 
one of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets that she was a daughter of 
Burraburyas, king of Babylonia. This has since been doubted, 
but Professor Sayce does not see any other way of understand- 
ing the passage, which he renders thus : * Translation of the 
letter from Teie (No. 188) so far as the text is clear and 
unbroken : — ^^ To my son (bini, the Canaanite word, not the 
Assyrian ahil), speaks thus the daughter of the king : To thy- 
self, thy chariots [thy horses, &c.] may there be peace ! ]\Iay 
the gods of Burra-buryas go with thee ! I go in peace .... 
Here .... a tablet (= letter) from .... My messenger has 
brought silver to thy city-fortress, and may thy .... be at 
peace V .... then comes the following postscript : " Thy 
servant Kidin-Hadad accomplishes (the errand) : may my lord 
go (= live) for ever ! " ' 

We may hope to know^ more of this interesting queen, and of 
the disk-worship, so short-lived as it was in Egypt. With regard 
to physiognomy it is of course possible, as far as we know, that, 
otherwise than through her father, Mut-em-ua may have been of 
Punite descent. 



LIST OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES. 



Genesis. 

xxi. 2, 7 31 

xxiii. 2 116 

XXV. 26 38 

xxyiii. 13-15 87 

xxix 14 

XXX. 23, 24 173 

XXXV. II, 12 ... 87 

xxxvii. 3 32 

xl. II 44 

xli. 34 54 

n 40 47 

„ 46 38,49 

n 47 38 

n 49 5.5 

., 50 bo 

xlii.'25, 27, 28 61 

xliv. 20 31 

M V 30 

Xlv. ^ I2Q 

n 6 38 

M 8 47 

xlvi. 28, 29 70 

xlvii. 9 38 

xlviii. I, 2 86 

,n 3-6 87 

xlix. 3, 4 ^-j 

,, 22-26 106 

M 2^ 31 

Exodus. 

i.8 145, 159 

i. II 158 

iii. 22 149 

xiii. 19 160 

XXV 64 

xxxvii 64 



Numbers. 

i. 32, 34 87 

xiii. 22 112, 118 

xxvi. 34, 37 90 

Deuteronomy. 

i. 27, 28 121 

xxxiv. 8 Ill 

Joshua. 

X. 5, 38 121 

xi. 21, 22 121 

xy. 43 94 

xix. 14, 27 94 

xxiv. 32 92 

Judges. 
ix. 28 91 

1 Samuel. 

X. 2 26 

2 Samuel. 

xxi. 2 120 

I Kings. 
xxi. 26 112 

I Chronicles. 

iv. 21, 22 155 

V. I, 2 87 

vii. 21 151, 155 

„ 22 151 

V 24 155 

Ezra. 
viii. 10 94 

Job. 
xxxi. 26-28 147 



Psalms. 

xxiii 89 

cxxxii 107 

Song of Solomon. 
ii. 13 "o 

Isaiah. 

xlix. 26 107 

Ix. 16 107 

Ixiii, 9 89 

Jeremiah. 
XXXV 64 

EZEKIEL. 

xvi. 3, 45 121 

Daniel. 

i. 20 172 

ii. 10 172 

HOSEA. 
xii. 4 106 

Acts. 
vii. 15, 16 91 

Romans. 
ix. II 106 

Hebrews. 
xi. 21 84 

I John. 
ii. 14, 17 176 

Revelation. 
vii. 6, 8 87 



INDEX, 



Aah-hotep, Queen, jewels of, 131. 
Aahmes, triumph of, 52 ; conquests of, 

136 ; ascription from tomb of, 146. 
Abana-Baba, famine in time of, 132. 
Abd-el-Latif on famines, 55. 
Abraham, burial-place of, 29. 
Abram, call of, 11 ; wells of, 21. 
Abrek, et)Tnolog;}' of, 49. 
Abu Simbel, tablet of, ^5. 
Abyssinia, a tributary of Egypt, 59. 
Adeema, country of, 74. 
Adonai, worship of, 142. 
Agrarian law, Hebrew, 55. 
Ainsworth on Joseph's youth, 30 ; on 

Joseph's children, 87. 
Albert Nyanza, drying up of, 57. 
Aleppo, 16. 

Allemant, M., ring of, 46. 
Altar, Jacob builds an, 20. 
Amen-em-heb, inscription of, 138. 
Amenhotep I., conquests of, 137. 
Amenhotep II., slays kings of Syria, 44 ; 

conquests of, 138. 
Amenhotep III., reign of, 140; features 

of, 145. 
Amenhotep IV., 141. 
Amenophis III., picture of, 49. 
Amorites, the, appearance of, 1 19. 
Amu, the, procession of, 31. 
Anakim, the, 119. 
Anastasi papyri, scraps of, 74. 
Antef, tablet to, 47. 

Antoninus Martyr on funeral of Jacob, 117. 
Apepi, 40. 

Aphophis, the Pharaoh of Joseph, 40. 
Arab, divination by, 6$. 
Arba, 118. 
Asenath, 52. 

Atad, threshing-floor of, 114. 
Atbara river, importance of, 58. 
Aten, worship of, 141. 
Avaris, 56. 
Aziru, letter of, 143. 

Ba'al worship, 112. 

Baba, inscription of, 56. 

Baker, Pharaoh's, 44. 

Baker, Sir S., his lad, 38 ; on famine in 

Egx-pt, 57. 
Bakhtan, Princess of, story of, 43. 



Balaam, a lord of the 'Amu, 138. 

Balata, 24. 

Balm of Gilead, 36. 

Bast, worship of, 167. 

Beersheba, well at, 21. 

Beka, tablet to, 48. 

Belbeis, 73. 

Benjamin, birth of, 26 ; boundary-line cf, 
26 ; brought up with Joseph, 27 ; posi- 
tion of, 32 ; cup found in his sack, 62 ; 
Joseph's love for, 66. 

Benson, Rev. C, on Joseph's conduct, 66. 

Bergmann, Dr., on bas-relief, 81. 

Beriah, 152. 

Berosus on length of life, 78. 

Beth-el, Jacob at, 23, 24. 

Bilhah, children of, 14. 

Birch on Pharaoh, 40 ; on Amenhoteps, 
146. 

Blue Nile, importance of holding, 58. 

Blunt, Prof., on Joseph's coat, 30. 

Brugsch on Pharaoh, 40; on 'Abrek,' 
49 ; on proper names, 50 ; on tomb at 
El-Kab, 56 ; on Amenhotep II., 138. 

Bubastis, personification of, 74 ; ruins at, 
40, 163. 

Butler, Pharaoh's, 44. 

Chabas, on Joseph's honours, 47; on 
Egyptian letters, 63 ; on Joseph's staff, 
84. 

Chabratha, name for Rachel's tomb, 27. 

Chaemha, picture of, 49. 

Chariot, Joseph's, 48. 

Cistus ladaniferus, gum of, 36. 

Coat of many colours, Joseph's, 30. 

Collar of gold, 48. 

Conder, Major, on site of Sukkoth, 18 ; 
on Jacob's Well, 21 ; on Tomb of 
Rachel, 46 ; on Dothan, 35 ; on He- 
bron, 118. 

Contract-tablets of Chaldaea, 20. 

Corn, Joseph's brethren sent to buy, 60. 

Corn-shovel, wood, 54. 

Crocodilopolis, 108. 

Cup, Joseph's silver, 61. 

Cup of divination, Joseph's, 64. 

Damascus, 16. 
Damieh ford, the, 19. 



igo 



INDEX. 



De Rouge, on tablet to Antef, 47 ; on 

list of conquered peoples, 95. 
De Sacy, on Joseph's staff, S4. 
Deborah, death of, 24. 
Derri, adventure at. 65. 
Dinah, the matter of, 22. 
Dinder, the, 59. 

Diodorus Siculus on land tenure, 67. 
Divining by cups, 65. 
Donaldson, Prof., on tomb of Joseph, 168. 
Dothan, Joseph at, 34 ; site of, 34. 
Duthina, 34. 

Ebers, Dr., on spices, 36; on Egyptian 
beauty, 37 ; on Joseph's prison, 43 ; on 
diadem of Antef, 65; on Joseph's staff, 74. 

Edersheim on land tenure, 55. 

Edessa, 12. 

Egypt, dynasties of, 40 ; state of, 52 ; 
civilisation of, 53 • famine in, 55 ; tribu- 
taries of, 59 ; lanci tenure in, 67 ; feudal 
system in, 68 ; flocks and herds in, y6 ; 
Israel in, 149. 

Elam, 41. 

El-elohe-Israel, Jacob's altar to, 20. 

Eliezer, mission of, 11. 

El-Kab, inscription at, 56. 

El-Makrizi on famines. '55. 

Embalming, art of, 109. 

Ephraim, before Jacob, 85 ; descendants 
of, 151. 

Ephrath, burial of Rachel at, 26. 

Esau, his meeting with Jacob, 17. 

Euphrates, Joseph crosses, 15. 

Eusebius on Pharaoh, 40. 

Exodus, the, date of, 103 ; Josephus on, 
160; Naville on, 163. 

Fair Egyptians, 37. 

Fairbairn on divination, 65. 

Fakus, 72. 

Famines in Egypt, 55. 

Far'aa, valley of, 19. 

Finn. Mr., on land tenure, ^5* 

Flocks in Egypt, 76. 

Gabriel, an Indian, age of, 78. 

Gate of heaven, etymology of, 25. 

George the Syncellus on Pharaoh, 40. 

Germanicus, his visit to Egypt, 139. 

Gezer, 124. 

Gilead, 16. 

Goshen, land of, 72. 

Grapes, pressing out, etymology of, 44. 

Groff, M., on Jacob-el and Joseph-el, 99, 

lOI. 

Gum of Astragalus tragacantha^ 36. 

Hades or Sheol, 38. 

Hadid, 97. 

Haigh, Rev. D. H., on Dothan, 35. 

Hamah, 16. 

Har, 96. 

Har-em-heb, tablet of time of, 81. 

Hatasu, Queen, rule of, 137. 



Hauar, 56. 

Hebron, rulers of, 112; district of, 117; 

cave of, 118; age of, n8 ; description 

of cave of, 122-127. 
Heliopolis, 51. 
Herds in Egypt, 76. 
Herodotus on land tenure, 67. 
Heroonpolis, meeting at, 71. • 

Heroopolis, 73, 

Hittites, the, appearance of, 1 19. 
Hoes, wooden, 54. 
Holland, Rev. F. W., on ancient road 

from Palestine to Egypt, 71. 
Horses in Egypt, 48. 
Husbandry, Egyptian, 54. 
Hyksos, the, Joseph under, 40. 

Interpreters, use of, 63. 

Iqbala, loi. 

Infanticide in Egypt, 162. 

Ishmaelites. Joseph sold to, 35. 

Isaac, position of, 32 ; age of, at birth of 

Jacob, 38 ; at sale of Joseph, 38. 
Israel in Egypt, 149. 

Jacob, marriage of, 12 ; his service, 14 ; 
children of, 14 ; his return home, 14 ; 
conduct of, 15 ; his journey, 15 ; wrestles 
with the angel, 17 ; meets Esau, 17 ; at 
Shalem, 19 ; well of, 20, 21 ; builds an 
altar, 20 ; goes to Bethel, 23 ; his 
mourning, 25 ; sorrows of, 25 ; his vision, 
2^ ; returns to Hebron, 27, 28 ; Reu- 
ben's outrage on, 27 ; generations of, 
29 ; his affection for Rachel, 29 ; his 
love for Joseph, 31 ; rebukes Joseph for 
his dream, 34 ; his grief for loss of 
Joseph, 38 ; his age at birth of Joseph, 
58 ; his age at death of Isaac, 38 ; sends 
lis sons mto Egypt, 60 ; servants of, 
61 ; his migration into Egypt, 70 ; meets 
Joseph, 71 ; presented to Pharaoh, 77 ; 
worships on top of his staff, 82 ; blesses 
Joseph's sons, ^^ ; tells of his great 
sorrow, 87 ; his dying blessing, 89 ; his 
grave, 91 ; name of, 93 ; his prophecy 
and blessing, 105 ; his dying charge, 
108 ; he is embalmed, 109 ; mourning 
for, no. 

Tacob-el, 93. 

Jacob's Well, Tristram, Conder, and Mill 
on, 21. 

Job, his mode of life, 12. 

Joseph, birth of, 14 ; early years of, 15 ; 
site of tomb of, 20 ; his youth, 20 ; the 
support of Jacob, 23 ; humility of, 30 ; 
his coat, 30 ; pitfalls in his life, 32 ; tells 
of his brethren, 32 ; his dream, 33 ; goes 
to Dothan, 34; sold by his brethren, 
35 ; beauty of, 37 ; deceit of his brethren, 
38 ; his age when sold, 38 ; his age at 
the migration into Egypt, 38 ; in Egypt 
under the Hyksos, 40 ; sold to Poti- 
phar, 42 ; thrown into prison, 43 ; 
Drought before Pharaoh, 44 ; exaltation 



t 



INDEX. 



191 



of, 46 ; his ring, 46 ; his collar, 48 ; his 
chariot, 48 ; title of, 49 ; his wife, 51 ; 
his conduct during^ years of plenty, 54 ; 
treatment of his brethren, 61 ; his oath, 
62 ; inverted order of his questions, 63 ; 
his cup, 64 ; treats his brethren as spies, 
66 ; meets Jacob, 71 ; announces arrival 
of his father and brethren, 75 ; presents 
Jacob to Pharaoh, 77 ; government of, 
80; his oath to dying Jacob, 82 ; brings 
his sons to Jacob. 85 ; his grave, 92 ; 
names of, 93 ; his blessing, 105 ; buries 
his father, 113; comforts his brethren, 
12S ; his descendants, 132 ; his death, 
133 ; his age, 134 ; embalmed, 135 ; 
burial-place of, 135; his tomb, 168; the 
truth-teller, 172 ; his character, 174. 

Joseph-el, 93. 

Josephus on theExodus, 160; on brethren 
of Joseph, 170. 

Joshua, inheritance of, 97. 

Judah, his conduct towards Joseph, 35. 

Kahum, bodies of infants in, 162. 

Kalisch, Dr., on Joseph's children, 86. 

Ka-mes, title of, 50 ; wars of, 131. 

Kanana, fortress of, 114. 

Karkemish, 16. 

Karnak, list of Egyptian tributaries, 59. 

Kedorla'omer, raid of, 41. 

Keil. on Jacob's dying blessing, 89, 

Kellogg, Dr., on chronology of Joseph, 

144. 
Khamor, 20. 
Kharran, events at, 11; worship in, 12 ; 

relics of, 12. 
Kheber-Keui, 12. 
Khetam, fortress of, 74. 
Khiti, the scribe, 63. 
Khiwites, the, 20. 
Kiriath-Arba, 14, 118. 
Kyphi, incense, 36. 

Laban, craft of, 11 ; conduct of, 14; pur- 
sues Jacob, 16. 

Ladanu7n^ a gum, 36. 

Lady, Egyptian, letters of, 63. 

Lancet on longevity, 77. 

Land-tenure in Palestine, 55. 

Lange, on the dying Jacob, 88. 

Leah, marriage of, 14 ; children of, 14. 

Lenormant on title of Ka-mes, 50 ; on 
XVIIIth dynasty, 155. 

Libyans in Egypt, 42. 

Longevity, instances of 'j'j, 

Makhanaim, 16. 
Makpelah, cave of, 118. 
Malan, Dr., on Potiphar, 42. 
Mamre, 28. 

Manasseh before Jacob, 85. 
Marietta on title of Ka-mes, 50. 
Martu, stars of, 33. 

Maspero on Pharaoh, 40 ; on Joseph's 
honours, 47 ; on Tahutia, 65 ; on list of 



conquered peoples, 100 ; on Queen 

Taia, lAi. 
Merenptah, probable Pharaoh of the 

Exodus, 74 ; likeness of, 79. 
Merrill, Dr., his identification of Suk- 

koth, 18. 
Migdol-eder, 2^. 
Milman, Dean, on Hebrew agrarian law, 

55- 
Mineptah, 74. 
Mizraim, the, 76. 
Morning Post on longevity, 77. 
Mourning for Jacob, no. 
Mujir-ed-din on burial of Joseph, 171. 
Mukaddasi on Hebron, 117. 
Mukhna, plain of, 19. 
Mut-em-ua, 145. 

Naharina^ 138. 

Naka'at^ g^^m, 36. 

Nakhor, at Kharran, 11, 

Naun or Nun, 97. 

Naville, M., on Apepi, 4 ; on Joseph's posi- 
tion, 48 ; on god Turn, 51 ; on tablet at 
Abu Simbel, 55 ; on separation of king 
and subjects, 70 ; on Pithom, 71 ; on 
Goshen, 72 ; on likeness of Merenptah, 
79 ; on XVHIth dynast>^, 152 ; on the 
Exodus, 163 ; on Bubastis, 163. 

Nectanebo H., shrine of, 73. 

Nile, overflow of, ^']. 

Norden, adventure of, 6^. 

Norris, Archdeacon, on Joseph, 32 ; on 
seven years of plenty, 54. 

Oak of Shekem, site of, 24. 

Oak of Weeping, the, 24. 

Oath, Egyptian, 62. 

Objections to Scripture narrative, 60, 62. 

On, high priest of, 51. 

Orbiney papyrus, story from, 43. 

Padan-Aram, etymology of, n. 

Palestine, land-tenure in, ^S- 

Pa-Sopt, 72. 

Patriarchs, their way of life, 12. 

Paula on Joshua, 97. 

Pentaour, poem of, 6'i. 

Penu-el, 17. 

Petrie, Mr. P., on Pharaoh, 40. 

Phacusa of Ptolemy, 72. 

Pharaoh, dream of, 43 ; of the Exodus, 

probable, 74 ; appearance of the, 78. 
Pibeseth, 40. 

Pierret on Joseph's honours, 47. 
Pi-Sebek, 168. 
Pithom, 71. 

Pi-tum, Roman inscription at, 71. 
Planetary worship, 12. 
Plenty, the years of, 54. 
Ploughshares, wooden, 54. 
Poole, R. S., on Josephi's staff, 84; on 

Israel in Egypt, 150. 
Porter, Dr., on site of Shalem, 19. 
Potiphar, Joseph sold to, 42. 



igz 



INDEX. 



Ra, worship of, 51. 

Rachel, marriage of, 12 ; children of. 14; 
death of, 2^; ; home of, 26 ; tomb of, 
26 ; respect for, 26 ; mistake about, 27 ; 
Dean Stanley on, 27. 

Rahat, the, 59. 

Ramah, site of, 26. 

Rameses, site of, 73. 

Rameses I., reign of, 149. 

Rameses II., exploit of, 68 ; vanity of, 164. 

Ra-Sekenen Taa III., 56. 

Rawlinson, Prof., on children of Ephraim, 
152. 

Rebekah, death of, 24. 

Renouf, Mr. L., on 'Abrek,' 47. 

Reuben, his outrage, 27 ; his conduct to- 
wards Joseph, 35. 

Ring, seal, 46. 

Road,aticient,from Palestine to Egypt,7i. 

Ruin of Canaan, the, 116. 

Ruten folk, tribute of, 64. 

Saftel-Henneh, y2. 

Salatis, the title, 42. 

Salim, 19. 

San, 40. 

Sarah, burial-place of, 29. 

Sayce, Prof., on Babylonian astronomy, 

33; on 'Abrek,' 50; on Hittites, 120; 

on XVIIIth and XlXth dynasties, 157 ; 

on Joseph as a diviner, 172. 
Se'ir, 16. 
Sekenen-Ra the Great, 130 ; suspicious 

words of, 62. 
Sekenen-Ra the very Great, 130. 
Sekenen-Ra the very Victorious, 130. 
Septuagint on meeting of Jacob and 

Joseph, 71. 
Seqenen-Ra, mummy of, 52. 
Seruj, 12. 

Setemua, an aide-de-camp, 64. 
Sethe, Dr. K., on Ra, 51. 
Seti I., reign of, 149. 
Shalem, 19 ; site of, 19. 
Shasu, 74. 
Shaving, 44. 
Shekem, site of, 19 ; altar at, 20 ; site of 

oak at, 24. 
Sheol or Hades, 38. 
Shepherd-kings, the, Joseph under, 40; 

mystery of, 41. 
Shepherds, odious to Eg)rptians, 76. 
Sherah, 152. . 
Sickles, wood, 54. 
Sikima, 90. 
Silver more costly than gold, 65 ; valued 

by Hittites, 6^. 
Simeon, Joseph's treatment of, 66. 
Slaves, value of, 36. 
Solar disk, worship of, 141. 
Somali, a tributary of Egypt, 59. 
Soudan, a tributary of Egypt, 59. 



Spices, trade in, 36. 

Staff, Jacob's or Joseph's, 8^. 

Stanley on Hebron, 122. 

Sukkoth, 17; identification of, 18. 

Sutekh-worship, 52. 

Sychar. well at, 21. 

Syria, kings of, slain, 44. 

Tacitus on Egyptian inscriptions, 139. 

Tahutia. relics of, 65. 

Taia, 97. 

Taia, Queen, 141. 

Talbot de Malahide,Lord,onlongevity,77. 

Ta-makhirpe, garrison at, 64. 

Tammuz, worship of, 142. 

Tanis, 51. 

Tel-Basta, 40, yf). 

Tel-el-Kebir, 73.' * 

Tel-el-Maskhuta, 73. 

Tel Gurob, relics in, 162. 

Tell Dar'ala, 18. 

Tell Dothan, 34. 

Terakh, death of, 11. 

Teraphim, 16. 

Thomson, Dr., on site of Rachel's tomb, 

26; on famines, 60. 
Thothmes I., conquests of, 137. 
Thothmes II., reign of, 137. 
Thothmes III., list of tributaries to, 93 ; 

date of, 102 ; reign of, 137. 
Thothmes IV., dream of, 43. 
Thuku, country of, 74. 
Tristram, Canon, on Jacob's well. 21 ; on 

Dothan, 35 ; on Har, 96. 
Tum, title of, 51. 
Tura, quarries of, 137. 
Tutu, tomb of, 144. 
Two Brothers, the, story of, 43. 

Urfah, 12. 

Vigouroux, Abbe, on Dothan, 3/^; on land- 
tenure, 67. 
Vulgate on death of Rachel, 21. 

Wiedemann on Pharaoh, 40 ; on title of 

Joseph, 51. 
Wilkinson, Sir G., on wine, 44 ; on 

Joseph's honours,48 ; on land-tenure, 67. 
Wilson, Sir C. W., on road from Palestine 

to Egypt, 71 ; on Hebron, 122. 
Winton. Sir F. de, on overflow of Nile, 57. 
Wordsworth, Bishop, on Stephen's speech, 

91. 

Yabbok, the, 16. 
Yasuf, 98. 

Zagazig, 73. 

Zerka, 16. 

Zilpah, children of, 14, 

Zoan, 40. 



THE END. 



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